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Saoirse Ronan silenced her fellow guests on The Graham Norton Show with a brutally honest reminder about violence against women and girls.
Appearing on the BBC chat show on Friday night (25 October), Ronan, 30, was on the red sofa alongside Hollywood stars Eddie Redmayne, 42, Paul Mescal, 28, and Denzel Washington, 69, to discuss their forthcoming projects.
The four guests were listening to Redmayne talk about his new series, The Day of the Jackal, in which he stars as an elusive assassin.
Redmayne discussed learning self-defence from a specialist combat expert as part of his training for the role, and recalled being taught how to use his mobile phone as a weapon to jab an attacker in the neck.
Gladiator star Mescal then joked that he would not think of pulling out his phone during an attack.
“Who is actually going to think about that? If someone actually attacked me, I’m not going to go ‘phone,’” said the actor, gesturing as if to take a phone out of his pocket.
Ronan then said: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time”, as both Redmayne and Mescal fell silent.
“Am I right ladies?” Ronan said after a brief pause, and was met with a round of applause from the audience.
The rest of the guests on the sofa seemed to mumble in agreement and nodded along as Norton changed the subject.
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Fans have been praising Ronan for her honesty in the moment, and vocalising the everyday measures that women have to take in order to protect themselves from gender-based violence.
“Saoirse Ronan gagging men we love to see it,” said one fan online. “The way she waited to hear about their privilege, then hit them with a reality check.”
Another added: “That awkward silence after she dropped the bomb on them speaks volume.”
“Oh you just know they all felt stupid after that,” said one fan.
Another fan was amused by how “flabbergasted” the other guests were by Ronan’s remark.
“Crazy to see how when the guys spoke they were so full of energy but when she said ‘Am I right ladies’ they just started mumbling lmao she got them FLABBERGASTED,” someone wrote.
One viewer said on X/Twitter: “Men have the luxury of joking about situations that women would be threatened and horrified in. Our experiences are so different!”
Earlier this year, UK police chiefs warned that violence against women had become a national emergency, as two million women are estimated to be victims of violence perpetrated by men in England and Wales each year.
Crimes including stalking, harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence affect one in 12 women in England and Wales, and the number of recorded offences have grown by 37 per cent in the past five years. The Independent reported in March that more than 350 women have been killed by a man since the murder of Sarah Everard.
Women are often forced to consider methods of protecting themselves in public, whether that is sharing their location with loved ones while walking alone at night or learning self-defence techniques.
