Rose Byrne’s New Movie “Wrecked” Her—and Redefined Her Career

“I can’t shut up on the subject of Rose Byrne,” says Conan O’Brien. It’s true—he’s so impressed by her work that he wants to keep talking about Byrne even after our allotted time has run out. O’Brien makes his dramatic film debut opposite Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, an agonizingly tense portrait of a mother in crisis written and directed by Mary Bronstein (Yeast). Byrne plays the antiheroic protagonist, Linda, with ferocious, wrenching, blackly comic commitment. Several of her rawest scenes are opposite O’Brien, who portrays Linda’s ever-unfazed therapist.

“I wish I could come up with the right word. I don’t want to use vacant terms like ‘blown away.’ But I was in a small contained space with Rose Byrne and I saw what she could do,” O’Brien tells me. “And I will be honest with you: I don’t understand how a person can do that. You’d see her go from zero to 90—be in agony at the end of the scene, crying or screaming, and ‘cut’—and then Rose would giggle and start to ask me where I got my shoes. I don’t understand that.”

Bronstein cast Byrne because she felt like the actor was “hiding in plain sight.” An Australian native, Byrne broke out Stateside with her Emmy-nominated turn in the legal TV drama Damages opposite Glenn Close, then started stealing scenes in studio comedies like Bridesmaids, Get Him to the Greek, and Neighbors. Bronstein knew Byrne was capable of more—as she showed in the underseen Apple TV+ dramedy Physical, which blended dark comedy and drama. Bronstein’s star “needed to be somebody who’s a very strong technical actor, but who also would be willing to turn themselves completely inside out for me and take a lot of risks,” the director says. “It required everything of her mind, body, and soul. And she would go past the point of what I asked of her physically, every time.”

Later, when I meet Byrne for lunch in her Brooklyn neighborhood, she speaks of the harrowing, unrelenting Legs with a disarming ease. “I define actors in one of two categories—are they totally normal on set until they start acting, or are they weird on set until they start acting?” says Seth Rogen, Byrne’s friend and costar in Apple TV+’s Platonic (currently airing its second season). Byrne falls into the first category. “Then I’m always amazed at how far she will push it—to a point where it’s ridiculous at times, but also very fearless and very fun.”

Byrne had just one goal on Legs: “I didn’t want to fuck it up.” She didn’t. The film earned raves out of its Sundance premiere and has an awards-friendly October 10 theatrical release date—and it’s built on what Byrne gave to it. (She already won the best-lead-performance prize out of the Berlin Film Festival.) “Just by sheer talent, Rose demands that you be present. She made it really hard for me to screw up,” O’Brien says. “I do believe that if you had replaced me with a CPR dummy, people would be talking like, ‘You know, that CPR dummy did a very good job!’”

He adds, for good measure, “I’m stunned by Rose. I’m just stunned by her.”

Vanity Fair: Mary has described the first time you saw this movie as being rather intense. What do you remember about that screening?

Rose Byrne: I stumbled out of the theater in a complete shock. It was super dark. I was by myself and it added to the drama, because I couldn’t find my way out. And then I fell out, and Mary was running through the hallway and she was like, “Are you okay?”

Even having made the movie, you couldn’t have known what to expect.

It superseded expectations. I didn’t move for the first hour. I was frozen. But the tension of the film is so extraordinary—whether I was in it or not, to be honest, I just was absolutely arrested by the visuals.

The last time we spoke was while Physical was airing. I see a connection between that role and this one—just in so viscerally playing a high degree of inner torment.

“Who’s this lady? She looks stressed.” [Laughs] Yeah, I know. I totally see a good through line with [Physical’s] Sheila and Linda—someone masking a whole lot of stuff going on.

Platonic is about as different in tone as you can get. But in all of these projects, you’re tackling very real and complicated explorations of parenthood.

Yes, totally. Once you get to a certain age, all of a sudden you’re like, “Well, listen, this is what’s going to come your way if you’re lucky.” And that’s been, for me, really enriching. I’ve had far richer experiences as I’ve gotten older as an actress, as opposed to when I was starting out. Being a parent myself, it’s the most challenging thing on earth to do, and rewarding, and all the corny clichés of it. To have these dialogues with women like Mary Bronstein, [Physical creator] Annie Weisman, or [Platonic co-creator] Francesca Delbanco about what that is—it’s really been so wonderful.

I could even loop Bridesmaids into this particular niche of yours—chipping at a person’s breezy exterior to reveal the mess they’re hiding inside. It can be funny, it can be heartbreaking, and it’s very unique to what you bring to a role.

So what do I make of that? [Laughs]

Yeah.

It’s an interesting observation. I felt like things really opened up when I could try to be funny. I’m not a trained comedian. I didn’t go to the Groundlings or things like UCB, or do hours of stand-up. But life is so funny and tragic. I thrive on that. Creatively, when I had access to that material, I really opened up a creative conversation with myself I hadn’t had yet. Now I’m playing these characters. But in terms of what it says about me, I don’t know. [Laughs] I’ll have to ask Mary.

Getting to work with a lot of comedians, have you found it’s a new avenue to access stuff as an actor?

Yes, it’s fascinating. Comedians can be very serious, not funny at all. I was talking about this with Seth [Rogen] recently—the question of, “What’s harder? Drama or comedy?” I do think that if something is sad, it’s more objectively terrible. Something that’s funny is pretty subjective. In that sense, it’s a harder thing to bottle. It’s like being in a bottle—and I feel like something in that relates to me.

Did the prospect of making this movie scare you?

I just didn’t want to fuck it up. It’s as simple as that. The stakes are really high in this performance—I mean, in every performance. But particularly, this story is so specific, and truly about being a parent and about anxiety. We had this period where we rehearsed, just Mary and I, and without that, I don’t know what it would’ve been like. Mary was incredible. We got to have every conversation under the sun. She was so candid with me about some of this coming from her personal experience. We just could talk about every single page of the script— back to front, inside out. It was really fun to have that time. Once we got to set, I was like, “There’s nothing more I can prepare.” It was just what’s happening in front of me.

What did it look like at the end of a hard day for you?

The hardest parts are the night shoots, because I’m useless after a certain hour anyway. I’m not a night owl. Everybody’s a different beast. But they were really the true night shoots, where we’d see the sun come up, and you’d sleep all day—I’d come home to my little hotel room. At one point they said, “Do you want to stay at the hotel where we’re filming?” Because that’s where Mary was staying. And I was like, “I’m good.” Church and state. But I would usually text Mary at some point later, going, “I think I screwed this up. Did you get enough of this? I’m sorry if I didn’t get that.” I’d go through a series of thoughts in my head of what I could have done better, what we missed, how we’ll fix it—just neurotic actress things.

Mary mentioned to me that she wouldn’t run a lot of takes.

She didn’t. It’s a tiny movie—it’s not like a Kubrick film where you can do a hundred takes. Or allegedly, those sorts of things you hear about. [Laughs] This was four weeks. It was like doing a play. I just stepped onto the set, but before I knew it, I was off the set. The adrenaline of it got me through all of that.

Did it take a toll—physically, emotionally, all the above?

It’s funny—having small children, they just couldn’t care less if it’s taking a toll on you or not, whether it be work or something else. That’s always very grounding. But I felt sad it was over. It was such a gift to be able to do it.

Because the camera was so close, it was a very technical exercise as well a lot of the time. And my scene partner, you never see. There’s twists in the filmmaking that people will hopefully recognize, but that was wild, going, “How’s that going to work? How’s this story going to be told?” It’s just all from the perspective of Linda, in a way that I’ve not experienced for a while in the cinema—watching it, just like, “Oh, you are inside this person’s eyeballs.”

Do you remember what state of mind you were in when you finished filming?

Whew. I have an Australian kind of relaxed, laidback quality that I know is culturally familiar, but I am peddling fast underneath a little bit. I was just like, “Is this okay? Did I fuck it up?” Did you know what I mean? I didn’t want it to be over. When Mary and I talked again later, I was having separation anxiety from the character—and from Mary, and Mary as part of the character, and our friendship. I felt a little of that when I was coming away from it. And I felt pretty wrecked, physically.

There’s the physical toll I was asking about!

[Laughs] I admit, I looked busted.

You play another intense role in the film Tow, which premiered to strong reviews in Tribeca. But it still hasn’t found distribution, correct?

I do definitely feel the change in the business a little bit. [Tow] was a film we put together even smaller—we shot that in 20 days or something like that, very, very creatively challenging.

I’ve had so many indies that have taken awhile to sell. You have to have a thick skin. Look: we made this, I’m proud of it. But I’ve been doing this for so long, I have such a practicality about things now. What I love about producing is just the involvement of the creative decisions. I’m not particularly savvy with marketing or the financial side of things—but casting, producing, script editing, developing, that stuff has been really fun.

You mentioned it being kind of a weird time for the business. What are you noticing?

The middle-range films are harder to get together, to then get in the cinema. I guess there are still big comedies coming out. It’s just different. I saw Happy Gilmore 2 is coming out—

Right, on Netflix.

Is it? It’s not at the movies?

No.

Wow, okay. Sorry about that, I got that one wrong. [Laughs] But yes, those sorts of things, it’s changed—and I wonder if it’s ever going to go back. That’s what we all wonder.

It’s heartening to see A24 back a movie like Legs, though. And I imagine you’ve never really been offered something like this before?

No. Oh my gosh, no.

Was it a role you were waiting for, or hungry for?

It’s more that I’m shocked it came to me. I know how hard it is to be an actress in this business, so I’ve got to just celebrate the wins for everybody. Not that I’m not driven and all that stuff. Yes, this is a special experience. I felt ready in the sense of being a parent, and my own life, and having an enriched life by having my own family, and all of the challenges of that. I felt so excited to do it and throw everything I have at it.

The presentation of this character is so unvarnished. She makes terrible, painful choices, and any notion of keeping her likable or sympathetic goes out the window from moment one. Did you find that exciting? Challenging?

You want the audience to root for the character, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re likable, right? That space in between is really fun to play. A lot of my questions over the table during rehearsal had been like, “And why does she…?” And “What?” And “Where do we…”

Did Mary answer when you asked?

Mary? Oh, yeah. She’d had this in her mind for years and years and years, so there was no stone left unturned. And some things, we agreed upon together, or I had feelings about, and she would agree. We had a robust discussion about who this person was, and that really informed all of the decisions for me that she makes.

Exploring parenthood in such a visceral way as you do here, does it bring stuff up?

Oh, of course. The primal nature of having gone through birth—it’s all in there. Mary is almost existential with what she’s putting up on screen: This is everyone’s worst nightmare of having a child who can’t cope. She’s trying to escape, and trying to escape, and trying to escape. It’s all there in the subconscious. I’m not a Method actor in that sense, but once you become a parent, it’s all there in your body.

Would you ever want to try going Method for something like this? Because it sounds like you were doing the opposite. You were just ending and immediately analyzing the shoot like, “Was this okay?”

I know. Maybe I should go the other way. [Laughs] I trained at the David Mamet School, which is very Meisner technique: Acting is reacting, the words are on a page. That was really popular in Australia, and it became something that I really enjoyed. But there’s something about character, and flair, and humor that is also a part of a creative conversation for me, which I’ve leaned into more as I’ve gotten older and I’ve been doing it longer.

When I’m on set, I’m pretty contained. I’m not the most exuberant. I am conserving the whole time. I’ve had many friends who’ve studied at Strasberg, and loved it, but I don’t want to be thinking about my dead dog when I’m doing a scene. [Laughs] If I had played Linda as a purely Method, I don’t know what would’ve happened. Maybe I wouldn’t have come back from Montauk. Maybe I would’ve been swept out to sea at the end.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.