Saoirse Ronan’s Blunt Reaction to Paul Mescal’s Self-Defense Joke Goes Viral

Saoirse Ronan’s mic-drop moment on The Graham Norton Show feels like a “W” for women everywhere, which is probably why the clip has gone viral on X with more than 55 million views.

Here’s what happened: Ronan appeared on the British talk show alongside Paul Mescal, Eddie Redmayne, and Denzel Washington on Friday, October 25, making her the sole woman on the stage. While Redmayne was discussing his latest project, The Day of the Jackal, in which he plays an assassin, he explains to the panel that he had been working with a self-defense specialist who taught him to use a smartphone as a weapon.

In a clip cut by a user called Scarlett, Mescal pokes fun at the suggestion. “Who’s actually gonna think about [it] though,” he says with a laugh. “If someone attacked me, I’m not gonna go, ‘Phone!’”

As the men riffed on Mescal’s point, Ronan, sitting back with her elbows resting on the couch, attempts to make a point but is unable to get a word in. Finally, after a lull, she says: “That’s what girls have to think about all the time.” When the men, shocked into silence, say nothing in response, Ronan looks to the studio audience and adds, “Am I right, ladies?” and throws the “shaka” symbol. (Watch the full clip here.)

And let’s not forget—Ronan played the 14-year-old victim of an abduction and brutal murder in 2009’s The Lovely Bones, so I imagine the subject of self-defense hits a little closer to home.

The interaction was not mean-spirited. If anything, their dynamic was more like an older sister with her little brothers. But the clip quickly took off on social media, with a few detractors dunking on Mescal’s blasé attitude to self-defense.

One tweet reads: “the silence after saoirse’s ‘that’s what girls have to think about all the time’ oh you just know they all felt stupid after that.”

Others took the interaction more seriously. “The thing that angered me the most is that Saoirse Ronan, the only woman on the panel, had to almost fight to make her point amongst a group of laughing men who didn’t consider her input or the experiences of women,” wrote user Tan Smith. “Almost as if that’s the entire fucking problem isn’t it?”