Saoirse Ronan said she is surprised by the massive reaction to her comments about women’s safety on The Graham Norton Show, calling it both “unexpected” and “wild.”
Last Friday, the Irish actor appeared on the BBC with fellow actors Paul Mescal, Eddie Redmayne, and Denzel Washington. During their conversation, Redmayne shared that part of his preparation for the TV series The Day of the Jackal involved self-defense training, which included learning how to use a mobile phone as a weapon. This detail gave rise to a brief, but powerful, discussion which has resonated with women around the world.
Mescal humorously asked if it made sense that someone had the time to reach for her phone when she was being threatened; Norton and Washington both laughed. However, in response to Ronan, something deeper was said. She quipped, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right, ladies?
“Her comment was cheered in the studio audience and quickly became a viral phenomenon on social media, where she has been universally praised by women worldwide. Speaking about the viral reaction to her comment on Virgin Radio UK’s The Ryan Tubridy Show, Ronan spoke about the impact of her comment: “.
She confessed, “It’s definitely not something that I had expected, and I didn’t necessarily set out to sort of make a splash.” Then Ronan shares why words have meant so much as she observes, “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.”. Ronan’s candid remark sets off an important conversation which goes beyond the brief tete-a-tete with the show. She recalled that the moment felt almost like she was “sitting at dinner with a bunch of my friends, where discussions about women’s safety come up all the time.”.
She said that it is actually common for women to look into safety in almost all aspects of their daily lives through saying, “This is actually an experience that we go through every single day, 100%.”.
She said, she was grateful for what words she had spoken for this large-scale dialogue. That’s where the global reaction was really helping women in society feel empowered to start opening their mouths more on certain topics. “It’s amazing,” she said, “that this moment was opening a conversation and allowing more women to just be like, well, yeah, actually, let’s talk about our experience.” Ronan appeared on The Graham Norton Show talking about her new film, Blitz. She here plays Rita, a mother, who travels around the city of London looking for her son as it slowly descends into chaos at the time of the Second World War.