BBCPaul Mescal has said Saoirse Ronan “hit the nail on the head” when she spoke about women’s safety, in a clip that went viral.
The two Irish stars appeared on The Graham Norton show last month, where fellow actor Eddie Redmayne explained he had been taught how to use a phone as a weapon while training for his role as an assassin in The Day of the Jackal.
In response, Mescal, 28, questioned whether anyone would realistically have time to take their phone out when being attacked, before Ronan said: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right ladies?”
Asked about the comments on Irish broadcaster RTE’s The Late Late Show, Mescal said Ronan had been “spot on”.
The Gladiator II star said he was not surprised by the huge reaction on social media to her remarks, “because you’re like, as you said, you’re on a talk show like this, and you’re kind of just talking.
“But I’m not surprised that the message received as much attention that it got, because it’s massively important and I’m sure you’ve had Saoirse on the show, like, she’s… quite often, more often than not, the most intelligent person in the room.
“But I think she… was spot on, hit the nail on the head, and it’s also good that… messages like that are kind of gaining traction, like that’s a conversation that we should absolutely be having on a daily basis.”
Ronan, who is starring in the Oscar-tipped film Blitz, was applauded by the audience on the BBC One show and the clip was trending on social media for days afterwards.
She later told Virgin Radio UK the reaction to her comments was “wild” and “definitely not something that I had expected”.
“I 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 said.
The 30-year-old added that the conversation “felt very similar to 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%.”
She said it was “amazing” that this moment is “opening a conversation” and “allowing more women to just be like, well, yeah, actually, let’s talk about our experience”.
She added the men on the talk show “weren’t sort of like debunking anything that I was saying”, and said Mescal “completely gets” the issue as they have talked about it before.
Her remarks were praised at the time, with numerous commentators saying she highlighted a reality women face.
After Ronan interjected with her comments, there was a brief silence before the audience applauded, while the men on the couch, and Norton, nodded their agreement and acknowledged her point.
Ronan was on Norton’s sofa talking about her new role in Blitz, in which she plays Rita, a mother searching for her son as World War Two ravages London.
Normal People actor Mescal is currently starring in blockbuster Gladiator II. Ridley Scott’s highly anticipated sequel following the 2000 epic has been met with a mixed response from film critics.