Saoirse Ronan with co-star Max Irons in a scene from The Host Source: AP
SAOIRSE Ronan, who has racked up a dozen feature film credits since being nominated for an Oscar at the tender age of 13 in 2007, didn't set out to work this hard.
But some offers are just too good to refuse. And in the case of this 18-year-old Irish actor, they just kept coming.
When Peter Jackson invited her to collaborate on his adaptation of critically-acclaimed novel, The Lovely Bones, opposite Rachel Weisz and Mark Wahlberg, Ronan could hardly say no.
And what up-and-comer would pass on an opportunity to go head-to-head with Cate Blanchett in a thriller helmed by Joe Wright (who directed Ronan in her Oscar-nominated performance in Atonement).
Then came an invitation from Interview With the Vampire director Neil Jordan to play a key role in his latest discussion with the undead, Bytantium, alongside Gemma Arterton, Jonny Lee Miller and Sam Riley.
And just when it seemed like there might be finally be a chance for Ronan to head back home to County Carlow for some of her "mam's cooking", Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel came up.
"I have done three films in a row a few times now, and it can burn you out," Ronan admits.
"It means you can't fully appreciate the project you are doing because you are so knackered.
"I don't really want it to be like that, but sometimes with schedules and stuff, you can't really make that decision."
There are clearly worse problems to have in an industry that averages 90 per cent unemployment - but one feels a certain sympathy for the young actor.
At an age when many of her peers are enjoying a gap year before knuckling down to the pressures of adult life, any mis-step she makes is likely to come under close scrutiny.
And even though the term "child actor" has never sat particularly comfortably with this youngster, the choices she makes now will have a major impact on her adult career.
In spite of the pressures, she says she has no regrets. "You can't really say no to someone like Wes. And I am glad I didn't. I had a great time."
Ronan has plenty to say about The Host, a film adaptation of author Stephenie Meyer's follow-up to the Twilight novels, directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca).
The sci-fi romance about a young woman whose body is inhabited by an alien life form, marks something of a departure for Ronan.
But even in the heightened world of teen fiction, she has gone for the dramatic challenge.
"Why not play two women instead of one? That was one of the real draws for me," she says.
The Host takes Twilight's love triangle, between a vampire and a werewolf, and raises it with a love quadrangle.
Since Melanie and Wanda are two separate entities existing in the same body, it makes a certain sense that they ultimately fall in love with two completely different men (played by Jeremy Irons's son Max and Jake Abel).
Ronan said she didn't lose too much sleep over the possibility The Host would introduce her to a whole new celebrity stratosphere.
"I didn't really think about that when I decided to take the project - to be honest, I find it very hard to believe that anything could surpass Twilight for the next little while because it was such a massive phenomenon - but I am definitely aware of it now."
Next up is Ronan's own take on the vampire film - Byzantium, directed by Neil Jordan (The Borgias).
"It was fun to play because it wasn't your typical vampire story - we don't have fangs and we don't turn into crystals in the daylight. It was more of a mythological take on the vampire story, which I really liked."
After a two-month break, Ronan will star opposite Eva Mendes, Christina Hendricks, and Ben Mendelsohn in How to Catch a Monster,, the directorial debut of man-of-the-moment Ryan Gosling.
"He wrote it, too. It's quite dark and very much up his street," she says.
SEE The Host, opens today
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