Paul Mescal praises Saoirse Ronan for viral clip: “She hit the nail on the head”

"She's quite often, more often than not, the most intelligent person in the room"

Paul Mescal has praised Saoirse Ronan for being “spot on” when speaking about women’s safety in a viral clip from The Graham Norton Show. 

Last month, Mescal and Ronan appeared on the chat show alongside Denzel Washington and Eddie Redmayne, who appeared to promote the upcoming miniseries The Day Of The Jackal.

Redmayne stars in it as The Jackal, a shadowy assassin-for-hire who’s also being chased by British intelligence. The actor discussed the intensive training required for the role, and noted that he learned about using a phone as a self-defence weapon in case of danger.

Mescal questioned if anyone would reasonably have time to take their phone out when being attacked, and joked about the silliness of having to do so in such a situation, to which Norton joined in.

Ronan, however, reminded them of a harsher reality: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time,” she said, to the dumbfounded silence of her fellow actors. “Am I right ladies?” she asked the audience, who applauded.

Now, in an appearance on Irish broadcaster RTE’s The Late Late Show, Mescal applauded Ronan for her comments.

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“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.”

After the clip went viral, Ronan said in an interview on Virgin Radio UK that she “wasn’t expecting” such a strong reaction to her comments.

“So many men and women that I know from all over the world have gotten in touch with me about this one comment,” she said.

“But at the same time, 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 per cent.”

She said that she’s had such conversations with Mescal in private, and that “he completely gets that and completely understands that.”

In other news, Mescal recently revealed that he had an argument with Ridley Scott on the set of Gladiator II because the director wouldn’t let him perform his own stunt.

Towards the end of the film, Lucius mounts a horse in pursuit of Washington’s Macrinus, and as Mescal recently told Variety, Scott tried to stop him from climbing onto the horse himself.

“Two weeks before the scene, Ridley says, ‘You’re not fucking doing it,’ and I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ and we had this argument,” Mescal said.

Scott was in fact acting on advice he had picked up from his 1977 debut film The Duellists, when he allowed leading man Keith Carradine to ride a horse on set on the final day of shooting. The actor broke his leg and cost the production a fortune in insurance pay-outs.