Paul Mescal has praised his friend Saoirse Ronan for speaking out on women’s safety in a viral clip from The Graham Norton Show, saying she ‘hit the nail on the head’.
The two Oscar nominees appeared on the BBC One talk show, where Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne was talking about his training for his role as a lone assassin in Sky Atlantic series The Day Of The Jackal, and how he was taught how to use a phone in an attack.
In response, Mescal, 28, said: ‘If someone attacks me I’m not going to go (reaches into pocket) phone’, before Ronan chimed in and said: ‘That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right ladies?’
The clip received a lot of attention on social media, and Mescal was asked on Irish broadcaster RTE’s The Late Late Show if they were surprised by the reception.
He responded: ‘No, I don’t believe we were surprised, 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 has received four Academy Award nominations for her acting work in Atonement, Brooklyn, Lady Bird, and Little Women, called the reaction to her comments ‘wild’.
She told The Ryan Tubridy Show on Virgin Radio UK: ‘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.’
She added the men on the show ‘weren’t sort of like debunking anything that I was saying’, and explained Mescal ‘completely gets’ the issue as they have talked about it before.
‘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%,’ Ronan also said.
She also said the moment sparked conversations, giving an example of a woman who worked on her new film Blitz, Steve McQueen’s Second World War drama, and whose husband did not understand what a fake phone call is.
The safety calls are used by some women to get out a situation with someone who is making them uncomfortable or could be dangerous.
Ronan said the woman has ‘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’.
‘We’ve all sort of subconsciously found the same tools and use them again and again and I find that really interesting,’ she added.
Normal People star Mescal, who has been nominated for a best actor Oscar for the drama Aftersun, is currently starring in hotly anticipated blockbuster Gladiator II.
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Ronan appeared in The Outrun, about a women struggling with alcoholism, early this year.