Rising to the challenge

Saoirse Ronan relished the chance to play two roles in The Host, says Alan O’Riordan

The Host is writer Stephenie Meyer’s follow-up book to the Twilight Saga. Set in the not-too-distant future, the story, now adapted for the screen by writer and director Andrew Niccol, depicts a world in which Earth has been colonised by the Souls, an alien race that displaces humans from their own bodies and turns them into hosts. The Souls have transformed the planet into a clean, safe, peaceful world — and, of course, the sine qua non for such a world, in science fiction anyhow, is a near eradication of that imperfect yet strangely loveable rogue, the human being.

A resilient few humans survive in the wilderness, a hunted species. Among them is Melanie Stryder, played by Saoirse Ronan, who explains what attracted her to the role.