Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan Didn't Hang Out During Mary Queen of Scots for a Good Reason

Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan both star in Mary Queen of Scots (as Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, respectively), but while filming they didn’t hang out at all. Because they’re actors.

And that means they took a fairly method approach to their roles. “We really, really didn’t want to see each other,” Ronan told Entertainment Weekly. In fact, Robbie and Ronan were kept separate on set, with Ronan in Scotland and Robbie in England, but they also specifically requested to not meet until the one scene they had to shoot together. “I love Margot and wanted to hang out, but we wanted [the meeting] to be this special thing.”

EW notes:

Historians believe the Queen of Scots and the Virgin Queen never met, but theater director-turned-first-time film helmer Josie Rourke was inspired by the 19th-century Friedrich Schiller play Mary Stuart, in which Mary and Elizabeth talk face-to-face on stage.

That means no Robbie and Ronan going out for tea, no dodging paparazzi while shopping for groceries at Sainsbury’s, no nights where they stayed up gossiping about which American actors have the worst Australian and Irish accents?!

Apparently, when the two did get together to shoot their emotionally charged scene, they started bawling on set:

“We were blubbering like idiots,” Ronan tells EW. “We just held each other for ages, we wouldn’t let go. We were like” — she lowers her voice to demonstrate their sobbing — “‘Huohooouuughh.’” She laughs. “I’ve never experienced anything like that.”