Saoirse Ronan appeared on The Graham Norton Show last Friday night alongside Paul Mescal, Eddie Redmayne and Denzel Washington where she went viral for a comment regarding gender-related violence and left the panel speechless.
During the episode, Saoirse made a comment regarding violence against women after Eddie shared a story about being taught to use his phone as a self-defence weapon while training for a role.
As Eddie told the story, Paul laughed, saying: "Who is actually going to think about that? If someone actually attacked me, I’m not going to go 'phone!'"
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As the men laughed at Paul’s comment, Saoirse chimed in saying: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.”. She was met by silence from the room, before addressing the audience saying: “Am I right ladies?” causing the audience to applaud.
The Irish actress has since broken her silence regarding the viral clip, and what Paul thought of it, saying: “I didn’t necessarily set out to make a splash!".
Speaking to Ryan Tubridy on Virgin Radio UK, Saoirse said: “The reaction has been wild. It's definitely not something that I had expected, and I didn't necessarily set out to sort of make a splash. But I do think there's something really telling about the society that we're in right now and about how open women want to be with the men in their lives."
She continued: “So many men and women that I know from all over the world have gotten in touch with me about this one comment, which is, again, I would urge people, please, please, please to watch this in context.
“Please watch the whole interview or watch at least that part of the conversation, because it really wasn't about… the boys weren't sort of like debunking anything that I was saying.
“But at the same time, it felt very similar to when I am at dinner with a bunch of my friends and I will always make the point that this is actually an experience that we go through every single day, 100%.”
When discussing Paul, the actress said: “Paul being one of my very dear friends, I’ve had conversations like that with him before and he completely gets that and completely understands that…”
Saoirse went on to say: “It's opening a conversation and again, hopefully it's allowing more and more women to just be like, 'Let's talk about our experience'.
“I met a woman last night who's working on Blitz, and she said that, 'It's really interesting, after we watched that interview, myself and a few of my female friends were with my husband and we said this really reminds me of the fake phone call. Her husband went, 'What, fake phone call? What do you mean?''
"And of course, you wouldn’t understand if you’ve not had to go through anything like that. But she somehow, throughout her life as a female, has gained these tools without ever talking to other women about it and understanding that this is sort of a survival tactic.
“And we've all sort of like subconsciously found the same tools and use them again and again and I find that really interesting.”
The 30-year-old actress was applauded all over social media for the comment with one TikTok user saying: “I know the feeling of having to shout to be heard”, another commented “I am glad she spoke out”. A third said: “They still don’t get it”.
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