The rise of Rose: how Rose Byrne’s newfound acting range has become her calling card COVER STORY
She starred opposite Heath Ledger as a teen, made a movie with Oprah last year and recently started a female-run production company. Comedy breakthrough star Rose Byrne truly is having the last laugh.
ROSE BYRNE has to be one of our favourite funny girls, even though just a few years ago she found herself being pigeonholed in serious, melancholic roles. She was in legal thriller series Damages for several years and took on many dramatic roles, slotting her neatly into the ‘dramatic actress’ category. After consciously looking for lighter roles, Rose was cast in 2010’s Get Him to the Greek, which set her career on a new trajectory. ‘I realised, “Hold on, I don’t want to be taken that seriously any more. I want to be able to be taken seriously doing something funny.” I think it freed me up more,’ she said. After that came Bridesmaids, Spy and Neighbors 1 and 2, and she was finally able to show her full range as an actress.
Despite her ability to put on flawless American and British accents, which is partly what has allowed her to snag the roles she has, Rose is actually Australian. Born in Sydney, she was the youngest of four children, which brought out her fighting spirit. ‘It was competitive just eating dinner, like, “Everyone, get what you want from the chicken.”
‘ When something is special, it’s hard to articulate it, but I feel really lucky.’
Plus competing for your parents’ attention!’
Perhaps it was a good thing, as a bit of ambition is essential in the film business. ‘I have drive, for sure. You have to. It’s a tough business; there are a lot of actresses and not a lot of great roles,’ she said. But she cautions against becoming too competitive, especially in the age of Instagram where not all is as it seems.
‘Healthy aggression is good, but social media can perpetuate that in the worst way. You have to be careful about comparing yourself to others. You can never be somebody else. You will only be yourself, and that’s what’s great,’ she said. ‘I’m as vulnerable as the next person in terms of being swept up in aspirational Instagrams. You have to know what is fantasy and what is real.’ Interestingly, Rose doesn’t have a public Instagram account: ‘I’m too shy, but I enjoy it! I never did Facebook, or any of the precursors to that. Instagram was my first foray into social media. It’s nice to see people, friends, doing their thing.’
Rose was a shy child, and a family friend suggested drama classes to coax her out of her shell. At the age of 13 she was cast in her first film, Dallas Doll .Afterthat she appeared in several Australian TV series in her teens. But her first professional rejection came when she didn’t get into drama school, which she described as ‘upsetting and emotional’. Instead, she studied English literature at Sydney University, but dropped out after two and a half years when she was offered a role alongside the late Heath Ledger in the 1999 Australian crime film, Two Hands.
In August this year, she posted a photo to Instagram of her and Heath on the set of that film, captioning it, ‘Twenty years ago!
Two Hands! Aussie kids on their first film’. She talked about the actor when she was a judge for Australians in Film’s Heath Ledger Scholarship. ‘He supported me so much in LA with his lovely spirit, always giving me a place to stay, always getting me into rooms to audition.’
The star left Sydney when her acting career took off, and has since lived in LA, New York and London – both for work reasons and because she believes Australians like to ‘wander’. ‘We like to walk about; we’re curious people,’ she said. She met American actor Bobby Cannavale in 2012 and
‘ You have to be careful about comparing yourself to others. You can never be somebody else. You will only be yourself.’
the pair has been together ever since. ‘He is one of a kind, man! He’s endlessly interesting and entertaining. When something is special, it’s hard to articulate it, but I feel really lucky.’ The two try to team up on projects whenever they can. They have two children together: Rocco (3) and Rafael (2). While Rose has previously expressed little interest in getting married, it seems she may have changed her mind. ‘The formality isn’t a draw for me, but we’ll do it one day. Once you have children, I just think, “Why not?”’
The delay may be because she’s just too busy. While Rose has proven her comedic ability, and then some, she still likes to mix things up. She’s been in two X-Men films and did a spot of theatre in 2014 with the Pulitzer prize-winning classic You Can’t Take It With You. Recently, she starred opposite Oprah Winfrey in the true-life drama
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – the role was so irresistible that Rose abruptly ended her maternity leave just six months after giving birth to her second child.
Next year she’ll appear in a series called Mrs America, created by American Horror Story producer Ryan Murphy. Rose takes on the role of iconic journalist and activist Gloria Steinem during the decadelong movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in the ’70s. This proposed amendment to the US Constitution had the function of guaranteeing equal rights to all Americans, regardless of gender. The cast includes Cate Blanchett, Sarah Paulson and Orange is the New Black’s Uzo Aduba.
Earlier this year, Rose tackled a unique dramatic role in the post-apocalyptic sci-fi film IAm Mother. The film follows a robot named Mother who has the almost impossible task of repopulating the earth. Although she wasn’t physically in the film – she voiced the titular robot – Rose received quite a bit of critical acclaim for her performance. ‘Byrne’s vocal performance as Mother delivers a welcome feminine flair to the film’s lead robot body, her subdued acting bringing a caring yet ominous feel that permeates the whole thing,’ said Thrillist critic Aaron Pruner.
But Rose hasn’t hung up her comedy hat just yet. She’s set to star in buddy comedy Like a Boss with Tiffany Haddish next year. And in one of her latest films, Instant Family, Rose and Mark Wahlberg teamed up to play a married couple that adopts three Hispanic-American siblings.
The script resonated with her. ‘The kids in the movie are older [than mine], so there are different challenges. But there’s a universal thing, once you’re a parent, that you get. In terms of the relationship between me and Lizzy [portrayed by Isabela Moner], it reminds me of my mother and me when I was that age. I was completely obnoxious and precocious – all the things you’re supposed to be when you are a teenager.’
Let’s go back to Bridesmaids again, because it’s worth its own paragraph. If you haven’t seen this cult classic yet, here’s the gist: Rose plays uptight bridesmaid Helen who’s on a mission to undermine the bride’s insecure maid of honour. Though Rose didn’t know it at the time, the 2011 comedy was a real moment in the film industry, proving to cynics that female-led comedies could be commercially successful.
‘I was very naive; I didn’t think, “Wow, this is groundbreaking,” or “This is going to change the game,”’ Rose said. ‘When we went to do the press and it became such a beloved movie,
I was like, “Oh, this is all we are going to be talking about.”
I was very unprepared for that. It was definitely fun doing it, and unusual because it was all women.’
Perhaps this spurred Rose on to launch her next big project: starting independent, womenrun production house, The Dollhouse. The company, which she co-founded in 2015 with a few close Australian filmmaker friends, focuses on films, television shows and plays that are femaleled. The Dollhouse is based in Sydney, which allows Rose to go back to Australia often. ‘I’m really close to [my siblings], who all have children. Having my own immediately made me want to spend more time all together – all those clichés,’ she said.
When Rose turned 40 in July this year, Bobby took to Instagram to post a sweet picture of them, captioned: ‘Happy Birthday to the lady of my life. Funniest lady in the game. Greatest Mum out there. Lucky boys we are.’ Cute! The couple have a house in Brooklyn, where Rose feels comfortable despite the doom and gloom brought about by Donald Trump’s presidency. ‘It’s made me feel scared in terms of how divided the country is. But New York is such a sanctuary and it does feel, here, that everyone’s sort of on the same page.’
Still, she says, ‘I’m an Australian through and through. Even though I have been [in the US] for 10 years, I’m not a citizen, and I still wake up on some days and go, what am I doing here? I’m an alien.’