Saoirse Ronan on ‘Wild’ Reaction to Viral Comment About Women’s Safety

Saoirse Ronan said she was surprised by the response to her viral comment about violence against women on The Graham Norton Show, but glad it seemed to be “opening a conversation again.” 

In a new interview on the Ryan Tubridy Show on Virgin Radio UK, Ronan called the reaction “wild,” adding, “It’s definitely not something that I had expected, and I didn’t necessarily set out to sort of make a splash.”

The moment occurred on a recent episode of Norton, where Ronan was seated alongside Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal, and Eddie Redmayne. Redmayne had been talking about how he learned to use a phone to fend off an attacker while filming his new series, The Day of the Jackal, leading to a round of incredulous jokes from the predominantly male panelists. 

“Who’s actually gonna think about that, though?” Mescal said at one point. “If someone attacked me, I’m not gonna go, ‘Phone.’” 

Ronan then silenced everyone by remarking, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.”

Reflecting on why the comment spread so swiftly, Ronan said, “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.”

Ronan did encourage people to not just watch the highly-clipped clapback, but the whole interview (or “at least that part of the conversation”) because the point wasn’t just to dunk on the other guests. “The boys weren’t sort of like debunking anything that I was saying,” Ronan said, noting that she and Mescal — her friend and co-star in the 2023 film Foe — had spoken about this issue before. 

“He completely gets that and completely understands that,” she said. “But I think the fact that there was a moment like that that happened on a show like Graham Norton, it seems to have had an accessibility which seems to have really gained traction, which I think is amazing.”
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Ronan said she hoped the clip would encourage “more and more women” to talk frankly about their experiences, noting that she’d already seen some evidence that it had. The actress said she was speaking with someone who worked on her new film, Blitz, who told her that, while discussing the Norton clip with some female friends and her husband, the women all mentioned the “fake phone call” — a safety precaution tactic while walking alone.

“And her husband went, ‘What fake phone call? What do you mean?’” Ronan said. “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.”