Irish actor Saoirse Ronan has spoken about the reaction to a viral clip of her on The Graham Norton Show where she managed to silence the three male A-listers with a remark about gender-based violence.
The 30-year-old actor, who stars in the Steve McQueen wartime drama Blitz, appeared on 25 October edition of the BBC talk show alongside Gladiator II stars Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington and The Day of the Jackal actor Eddie Redmayne.
The moment occurred after, Redmayne, 42, revealed how he had been taught how to use a phone in an attack while he was training for his role as a lone assassin in the Sky Atlantic series.
In response, Mescal joked: “If someone attacks me I’m not going to go (reaches into pocket) phone.”
The Aftersun actor’s gag got a chuckle out of the audience before Ronan chimed in and said: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right ladies?”
The response from the Brooklyn star earned an enthusiastic response from the female audience members.
Clips of the moment were soon shared on social media and at the time of writing, have been viewed more than 19 million times.
Speaking on The Ryan Tubridy Show on Virgin Radio UK on Wednesday, Ronan 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.
“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 like when I am at dinner with a bunch of my friends and I will always make the point that, well, this is actually an experience that we go through every single day, 100 per cent.”
Ronan said Normal People star Mescal is one of her “very dear friends” and added that she has “had conversations like that with him before and he completely gets that.”
She continued: “I think the fact that there was a moment like that that happened on a show like Graham Norton, which is something that the entire nation channels in to watch and even overseas, it’s something that people tune into, it seems to have had an accessibility which seems to have really gained traction, which I think is amazing.
“It’s opening a conversation and again, hopefully, it’s allowing more and more women to just be like, well, yeah, actually, let’s talk about our experience.
“I met a woman last night who’s working on Blitz, and she said ‘It’s really interesting, after we watched that interview, myself and a few of my female friends were with my husband and we said, you know, this really reminds me of the fake phone call.’
“And 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 subconsciously found the same tools and use them again and again and I find that really interesting.”
Additional reporting by PA.
