Saoirse Ronan claims Kanye West and Kim Kardashian inspired Macbeth role

Four-time Oscar nominee will make her UK stage debut in Yael Farber’s ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ opposite ‘Mare of Easttown’ actor James McArdle

Ronan in 2020 (AFP via Getty Images)

Saoirse Ronan said she was inspired by Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s tumultuous relationship for her forthcoming role as Lady Macbeth.

The four-time Oscar nominee will make her UK stage debut opposite Mare of Easttown actor James McArdle’s Macbeth, in director Yaël Farber’s upcoming production, The Tragedy of Macbeth.

Ronan and McArdle imagined Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as a “modern power couple” about whom there is intense public speculation but so little is actually known.

In an interview with BBC News, the Lady Bird star said: “We keep thinking about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as like a Kim and Kanye situation, where there have been stages to their success and real kind of highs and lows.”

The stars of The Tragedy of Macbeth also revealed they had named their characters Susan and Neil Macbeth for the modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.

“It helps,” Ronan explained, “because this is a domestic tragedy about a couple”.

Speaking to Vogue earlier this week, Glasgow-born McArdle said the Macbeths in the new play are “far more in love than Romeo and Juliet”.

“They’ve been together for years, and have been through the death of a child. The play is about the tragedy of the Macbeths, not Macbeth alone.”

McArdle and Ronan have previously worked together on-screen in Josie Rourke’s period drama Mary Queen of Scots, as well as on Ammonite with Kate Winslet.

McArdle said Winslet plans on coming to see The Tragedy of Macbeth when it opens at the Almeida Theatre in London on 1 October, and run until 20 November.