Saoirse Ronan responds to viral claim she resembles a famous pop star

Irish actor said she met the pop star backstage at a gig where they discussed their resemblance to one another

Saoirse Ronan has reacted to the revelation that she has a celebrity doppelganger, during an appearance on Thursday’s episode of The Tonight Show.

The Irish actor, 30, has been in the headlines since her viral exchange on The Graham Norton Show last week, in which she silenced her fellow guests with an honest reminder about violence against women and girls.

However, Ronan has also sparked online chatter thanks to her apparent resemblance to a famous pop star: Chappell Roan.

Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Ronan was shown a recent tweet that asked: “Have you ever seen Saoirse Ronan and Chappell Roan in the same room?”

The two images included in the post to X/Twitter showed Ronan looking straight ahead, alongside Ronan in a similar pose, to demonstrate their physical resemblance.

“Even Chappell Roan herself posted this on TikTok,” Fallon told the Atonement star, playing her a 2021 clip of Roan morphing into the actor in character in the 2009 film The Lovely Bones.

@chappellroan

Holy fuck remember when I was in the lovely bones ?

♬ Where'd All the Time Go? - Dr. Dog

Ronan confirmed that she is aware of the chatter and actually heard about it from Roan herself, when they met for the first time backstage after one of the “Pink Pony Club” singer’s gigs.

“I became so obsessed with her over the summer, just like everyone else,” Ronan explained, revealing that fellow actor Brie Larson and her friend had introduced themselves to Roan’s parents at the show.

“I was playing it really cool… and she called me over and said, ‘Everyone says that we’re the same.’”

Saoirse Ronan (left) and pop star Chappell Roan (Getty)

Fallon then brought out a photo of Ronan and Roan together with Larson and friends at the gig: “We’re in the same room, we both exist.”

“She’s just incredible,” Ronan continued in her praise of the pop star. “I love how she’s spoken out about the insane treatment that famous people get…”

“She’s a breath of fresh air,” Fallon agreed.

Ronan went viral last week when she appeared on The Graham Norton Show alongside her fellow Irish actor, Paul Mescal, his Gladiator co-star Denzel Washington, and The Day of the Jackal actor Eddie Redmayne.

Saoirse Ronan (second from right) with Eddie Redmayne (right), Denzel Washington (left) and Paul Mescal (second from left) on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ (BBC)

As the others listened to Redmayne speaking about how he’d learnt self-defence techniques from a special combat expert as part of his training for the role of an elusive assassin, Mescal joked that he wouldn’t think to pull his phone out to use as a weapon in an attack.

“Who is actually going to think about that?” he asked. “If someone actually attacked me, I’m not going to go ‘phone’,” he continued, gesturing as if taking a phone from his pocket.

“That’s what girls have to think about all the time,” Ronan quipped, prompting Mescal and Redmayne to fall silent. In an aside to the audience, Roann asked: “Am I right ladies?”

She was met with a round of applause, and has since received international praise for highlighting the everyday measures women have to take in order to feel better prepared in the event of gender-based violence.

Ronan stars in two films released in October and November: The Outrun, in which she stars as a recovering alcoholic who returns home to the Orkney Islands in Scotland, and Blitz, Steve McQueen’s historical war drama about a defiant young boy who goes on an adventure in London during World War II while his mother (Ronan) searches for him.