Saoirse Ronan has been applauded after silencing male Hollywood colleagues with a savage response to their joke.
The 30-year-old actress appeared on The Graham Norton Show alongside Eddie Redmayne, Paul Mescal, and Denzel Washington on Friday (October 25).
At one point in the show, the four guests and host were listening intently to Redmayne talk about playing an assassin in his new series, The Day of the Jackal. Watch the moment unfold below:
The 42-year-old Academy Award winner opened up about learning self-defence from a specialist combat expert as part of his training for the role and revealed that he was taught how to use his mobile phone as a weapon to hit an attacker in the neck.
Paul Mescal, who will star in Gladiator alongside Denzel Washington, then quipped 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,’” the 28-year-old actor pointed out, then gesturing as if to take a phone out of his pocket.
Ronan attempted to respond, but the audience’s reaction made it hard for her to get the words out, at first. Mescal then continued to joke: “Sorry Mom, one second – bang,” while pretending to talk on an invisible phone.
“That’s a very good point,” Redmayne chimed in afterward, as host Norton began to mime checking his pockets.
That’s when the Little Women actress interjected, saying: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.”
The stars were immediately stunned into silence, so the Lady Bird actress added: “Am I right ladies?” and was met with a round of applause.
A video of the moment was shared on X (formerly Twitter) and gained traction as many fans thanked Ronan for highlighting the reality of women’s safety concerns.
One user responded: “This encapsulates men being ignorant of male privilege in a nutshell. the fact that these guys– nice guys, mind– are just so unaware is almost terrifying. Thank goodness for Saoirse though because we all need a bit more attention drawn to this.”
“Her ‘I think that-‘ before hitting them with the ‘that’s what girls have to think about all the time’ after they finally stopped joking around, her being the only woman in the conversation hit really hard then. I love checking (even the nicest) men on s**t they never consider,” a second user said.
Another went on: “I like this clip bc these two are arguably some of the least toxically masculine actors, who have shown real intention to make space for female voices in their careers, and yet they are men, so they will never live in a woman’s skin and truly understand the violence we live with.”
