“I think people needed something like this, on a platform like that, to say, ‘Okay, we can talk about it now,’ and just to talk about that,” Saoirse, who is married to actor Jack Lowden-said. “And of course it’s not something that boys have to think about. But I think it’s very important for us, for all our little, young girls growing up, that we say, ‘This is the, this is the mentality that a woman should have, and that a young girl should have every day of her life.’”

But the actress also clarified that Paul is her “dear friend” and did not “refute” what she said.

“He fully understands that and understands that completely,” Saoirse told the British newspaper Virgin radioper Term“But I think the fact that there was a moment like that that happened on a show is like that Graham Nortonsomething that’s broadcast across the country and to watch, and even abroad, it’s something that people tune in to, it seems to have had an accessibility that seems to have really gained momentum.

(A Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)