To pull off an uncomfortable dark comedy like Bad Apples, director Jonatan Etzler had one actress in mind — and luckily for him, Saoirse Ronan was game.
“We sent it to her and within a week, she responded,” the Swedish director tells The Hollywood Reporter about recruiting the Irish Oscar nominee for his English-language debut. “She was so keen on doing it because it’s not her usual character to play. She’s been playing a lot of good-hearted people. I think she was very keen on playing an unsympathetic character.”
Ronan’s unsympathetic Maria is a struggling teacher in Etzler’s first English-language feature, set to open San Sebastian Film Festival’s New Director’s strand on Friday, Sept. 19. Adapted by Jess O’Kane and based on Rasmus Andersson’s debut novel De Oönskade, Bad Apples relocates the story from Sweden to south England in this examination of how we treat society’s most vulnerable.
Burnt out and fed up with her untameable class of 10-year-olds, Maria tussles with an increasingly naughty student, Danny (played wonderfully by young newcomer Eddie Waller), and makes a rash decision to keep him captive in her basement. Nia Brown stars as Pauline, a deceptively sweet classmate of Danny’s, and Game of Thrones breakout Jacob Anderson as fellow teacher Sam.
“What it does is it poses a lot of questions and asks us to think about how we are complicit in the suffering of others,” says Swedish director Etzler, known for One More Time (2023), Swimmer (2020) and Get Ready With Me (2018). “I think it asks us about all these moral compromises that we do every day in order to to live.”
At the same time, Etzler makes sure to note, it’s also a lighthearted look at a mess of a school teacher. “It would be such a depressing film if it weren’t funny and if it didn’t have so much lightness and entertainment in how it tackles these issues,” says the filmmaker. He’s just premiered Bad Apples to a North American audience in Toronto and now comes to San Sebastian hoping to see a similarly positive response from the Europeans.
Ahead of San Sebastian, Etzler unpacks the making of Bad Apples: On recruiting Ronan, why Sweden and Britain share a sense of dark humor, and the appeal of making movies in English: “There’s such a bigger variety, and there’s lots more possibilities in what you can do.”
Let’s start with why you wanted to adapt Rasmus’ book as your English-language debut.
I was really struck when I read Rasmus’ book, particularly with the moral dilemma that’s at the center of the story: How do we deal with people who can’t fit into society? I had been a teacher, and I knew how tough it was and how vulnerable you are in front of a group of children. They can be quite good at finding your soft spots. So I felt personally connected to it, but I also felt like it was such a good premise for a film. I thought the U.K. was a good place to set it, because I think the U.K. school system is quite similar to Sweden — it has the same dysfunctions.
(L-R) Oskar Pimlott, Jonatan Etzler, and Jacob Anderson attend the TIFF premiere ‘Bad Apples’ on Sept. 7, 2025.
Dominik Magdziak/Getty Images
My agent found a producer who wanted to do the film, and he knew (screenwriter) Jess (O’Kane). I thought she was great. She did a great job adapting it to the U.K. setting. She’s had experience working as a teacher as well. The U.K. has a great tradition of dark comedies. I think there are lots of similarities in the mentality as well, between the Swedes and the Brits.
What kind of similarities?
We have a lot of the same humor. We appreciate dark humor a lot more; we appreciate when a film can make you a bit uncomfortable.
Did you always picture Saoirse for the role of Maria?
Saoirse was my top choice. We sent it to her and within a week, she responded, which was great. She really wanted to meet, and she was so keen on doing it because it’s not her usual character to play — she’s been playing a lot of good-hearted people. I think she was very keen on playing an unsympathetic character.
I talked to her about it, and I said, “Yeah, but your character in Lady Bird was a bit unsympathetic at times.” And she said, “Yeah, in Lady Bird, she jumped out of the car. She didn’t lock up a child in her basement.” I think she was happy to do this part.
And, of course, I had watched all the great films that she’s done, so I’ve been a big fan of hers. She’s one of the greatest actors of her generation. [She’s] really funny. She has this great comedic quality and she has a sense of finding the weird behavioral mannerisms that [she] could make fun of. She made Maria feel both normal and also a bit weird.
Are we meant to have a completely unsympathetic opinion of Maria? There were times I felt some sympathy creeping in…
No, I don’t think it’s black and white at all. I think what she does is obviously unsympathetic when she locks up Danny in the basement, but I think that’s also one of the reasons I wanted Saoirse because I think the audience would sympathize with her and follow her on the journey a lot longer than with anybody else, because she is very sympathetic as a person.
And I must say I was so impressed with the acting on display from the kids — it must be tough to film with children.
It was reaally positive experience. It was really hard finding the children. There are lots of great child actors in the U.K., but it’s was to hard to someone, for Danny, who has this anger right underneath his skin. Without that quality, the film wouldn’t work. But I think they were so great and they immediately turned very professional as well. They learned all the tricks of the trade. I found it very fun. Working with child actors, it’s usually about trying to make it feel like a game and to let them be free and improvise.
I think it’s a great commentary on how we neglect our children. It’s interesting to see Danny and Pauline as both sides of the same coin, where they both feel unloved by the respective adults in their lives.
I agree with you that Danny and Pauline are really quite similar as characters, but I also think Maria is unloved by the ones she wants to be loved by. They’re a trio of people who can’t fit in, which I think [is what] the film is about, really: How do we deal with people who can’t fit into society?
It poses a lot of questions and it asks us to think about how we are complicit in the suffering of others. I think it asks us about all these moral compromises that we make every day in order to live. To me, that’s quite relevant to today. That’s how fascism takes hold, because we learn to live with these everyday compromises.
It’s interesting how everything always comes back to politics — there is also something to be said for the underfunding of British schools and the lack of help for vulnerable children. Did you shoot on location in the U.K.?
Yeah. The shoot was 32 days. We shot it in Bristol and the surrounding areas, and we also went there to do research. Me and Saoirse visited the school before the shoot. And we had teacher consultants and things like that. We had one studio build, which is the basement. It’s made by Jacqueline Abrahams who’s an amazing production designer. She has such a funny, quirky sense of detail. If you watch the film again, you can find small signs and stuff everywhere in the film. That was great fun, and also I really enjoyed shooting in the U.K. People are so professional.
This film premiered in Toronto, but it’s also heading to San Sebastian to open the New Directors’ strand. Have you been before?
I’ve never been to the San Sebastian Film Festival, so I’m really looking forward to it. I heard it’s really, really nice and [that] it’s a great city with great people and great food as well. I’m also very happy we got invited there. What I’m curious about is seeing how the European audience responds to it, now that I’ve seen a sample of the North American response.
What are you working on next?
I have a few projects in development. There’s one, I can’t tell you a lot, but it’s a surveillance thriller set in the modern digital age.
Another English-language film? Are you planning to keep making English-language films for the foreseeable future?
Yeah, I think I’m going to make more English-language films. I’m also going to make films in Sweden. Sweden is great and we’ve done lots of great films, but it’s also a very small country, so it’s quite hard to do something that’s a bit out of the box, a bit daring. And I’ve loved making films in the English language. There’s such a bigger variety, and there’s lots more possibilities in what you can do.
San Sebastian Film Festival 2025 runs Sept. 19-27.
