Saoirse Ronan ‘absolutely right’ about women’s safety anxiety, says Gladiator fight coach | Film

He has trained would-be assassins and organized invading hordes, Napoleonic forces and Roman regiments, but film military adviser Paul Biddiss found himself in the middle of his biggest Hollywood clash last month when actor Saoirse Ronan made a powerful intervention about women’s personal safety.

Ronan, a guest on Graham Norton’s BBC chat show sofa, sparked a nationwide debate about women’s safety fears when she interrupted fellow actors as they discussed techniques Biddiss had taught both cast members. Gladiator II and the new drama series Day of the Jackal.

Opening in theaters this weekend, Paul Mescal stars in Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator sequel, was exchanging details of his new fighting skills with Eddie Redmayne, star of the Sky Atlantic show based on Frederick Forsyth’s thriller, when Ronan unexpectedly intervened.

Mescal asked, “Who’s really going to think of that?” when he discussed using his phone as a weapon, Ronan pointed out that women do — they think about how to physically protect themselves on a daily basis.

“That’s what girls have to think about all the time,” she said. “Am I right, ladies?”

Within 24 hours, Ronan’s words had been repeated across the airwaves and social media thousands of times.

“Saoirse was absolutely right,” Biddiss, a veteran of the Parachute Regiment, said over the weekend in his first interview since the viral incident. “It was a bit of a shock to suddenly be at the center of such an important moment. Paul and Eddie were just enjoying themselves with a bit of banter about whether anyone would ever think of using their cell phone as a weapon as I had suggested.

“But, as Saoirse said at the time, phones, along with everything else in a handbag, are always on the mind of a woman walking alone. All these things can be used, and especially a mobile phone that you carry in your hand a lot.”

Redmayne, Mescal and his Gladiator co-star Denzel Washington, also a guest that night, accepted her intervention with good grace. Speaking this weekend on RTE’s The Late Late ShowMescal backed Ronan’s point of view, saying: “Saoirse was spot on, hit the nail on the head, and it’s also good that … messages like that are gaining traction, like it’s a conversation that we absolutely should be having on a daily basis.” ” The actor added that Ronan “is often the most intelligent person in the room”.

Biddiss was chosen to work with Scott on the long-awaited second Gladiator film after working with him on Napoleon. He was hired because of his experience handling a large number of supporting artists and training film “extras” to act like military forces from different historical eras.

He spent eight months on the project. Sometimes it was necessary to work while a desert sandstorm raged around ranks of new recruits who had been fitted with masks and goggles to cover their faces. But Biddiss said the most difficult challenge Gladiator IIshot in Malta, Great Britain and Morocco, reproduced a particular battle scene with the Praetorian Guard.

“It was very difficult to choreograph this exercise because Ridley wanted the men to move together in a coordinated way, which was very difficult to achieve,” he said.

While the adviser has often worked on location and reproduced large military encounters, his expertise also covers creating the illusion of skilled weapons handling and espionage practices. “I find, like the intelligence services, that women are much more surveillance-aware and much more situational. They have to be,” Biddiss said.

“Men are generally not like that. Their primal instincts when you train them are more predatory and so they miss things. As a result, women are much harder for professionals to follow.”

Plays the role of an assassin for Day of the JackalRedmayne needed to learn covert techniques, and during training he was told to follow a fictional agent named Zara, a role taken by Biddiss’s wife, Debbie. “He found it difficult. It’s proof that women are so much more aware and harder to track on the street,” Bidiss said.

“Even with my knowledge of the techniques,” he added, “I would find it more difficult to follow a female agent.”

Biddiss also trained British actress Lashana Lynch, who starred in the latest James Bond film and plays Bianca in Day of the Jackal. She was instructed in surveillance, lock-picking, close-quarters weapons training and the kind of “dirty fighting” once practiced by Special Operations Executive agents during World War II.

“During the Second World War the women who worked for SOE were among the very best performing agents. There are many stories that are not widely known yet and I want them to come out so that these women could be given the credit they deserve deserve,” said Biddiss.

“And today it’s right to use a mobile phone as a weapon, as Eddie talked about with Graham Norton. You can buy enough time to get away from such an assailant. You can also use the screen as a mirror to see someone following you.”