Graham Norton had actors Paul Mescal, Eddie Redmayne, Denzel Washington and Saoirse Ronan on his show, “The Graham Norton Show,” on Oct 25. He has been hosting guest celebrities since the show first aired in 2007.
Redmayne discussed the methods taken to prepare for his starring role in the series, “The Day of the Jackal” where he plays an assassin. For the role, he worked with a combat specialist where they went over different methods of self-defense. He found it interesting when he was taught about using a phone to make a jab at someone’s throat.
Mescal joked about his phone being an unlikely choice when defending himself. He had stated, “Who’s actually gonna think about that though? If someone attacks me, I’m not gonna go, ‘phone.’”
He and Norton continued with gestures of grabbing their phones from their pockets, telling their supposed attacker to ‘hang on a second,’ poking fun at the seemingly nonsensical idea. Redmayne agreed they had made some good points.
As they laughed, Ronan chimed in, “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.” As the rest of the men agreed in silence, she followed it with, “Am I right, ladies?” Ronan was then met with applause from the audience.
Clips of her making the statement quickly went viral and started to spark discussion as women began to share stories about different safety techniques they use, outlining everything as strategic—from fake phone calls to deter possible attackers to tightly gripping their keys.
Many also began to notice how Ronan was being spoken over while making attempts to share her thoughts, to the frustration of some viewers. This led Ronan to speak out about the incident.
“I do think that it’s really important to say that it needs to be kept in context,” Ronan said on the TODAY show. “This was part of a much larger interview, and the boys were talking about things like prep they’ve done for a job that they’d been on and stuff.”
Ronan stated that it was something that came out very naturally for her and is something that should be talked about. “This is the mentality that a woman has to have, and that a young girl has to have every day of our lives,” Ronan said.
With this comment going viral, Ronan has continued to make it known she didn’t think the men were going to disagree or argue with her on the statement.
“The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve kind of felt that it’s just really important that we are communicating that to guys who just don’t have to think about that, through no fault of their own,” Ronan said.
