Paul Mescal Responds to Saoirse Ronan’s Viral Women’s Safety Comment

Paul Mescal is praising Saoirse Ronan for her viral comments about women’s safety.

Mescal and Ronan recently appeared on The Graham Norton Show, where fellow guest Eddie Redmayne explained how he had learned how to use a phone as a weapon while training for his assassin role in the Peacock series The Day of the Jackal. Mescal made light of the situation when asking who would, realistically, have time to reach for their phone if attacked.

Ronan interrupted saying, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time. Am I right ladies?” The crowd replied with applause and her comment has since gone viral online.

Mescal looked back at the moment while on Patrick Kielty’s The Late Late Show. “I’m not surprised that the message received as much attention that it got because it’s a massively important,” Mescal said.

The Gladiator II star went on to praise Ronan, saying, “She’s quite often — more often than not — the most intelligent person in the room, and I think she was spot-on, hit the nail on the head. And it’s also good that messages like that are gaining traction. That’s the sort of conversation we should be having on a daily basis.”

Ronan is also aware of the discourse around her comment and has called the reaction to it “wild.”

When speaking on The Ryan Turbidy Show on Virgin Radio U.K., she explained her surprise about the moment. “[It’s] definitely not something that I had expected, and I didn’t necessarily set out to sort of make a splash. … 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 interaction with Mescal “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 percent.”

“[It allows] more women to just be like, ‘Well, yeah, actually, let’s talk about our experience,’” she added.