Rose Byrne, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, has lived a host of different lives as an actress.
Back in 2000, when she was barely 21, the Australian was awarded the Venice Film Festival’s best actress prize for her performance in the Aussie indie The Goddess of 1967. She later came to America, was cast in a Star Wars film and opposite Brad Pitt in Troy, and then spent five seasons working alongside Glenn Close on the TV legal-drama series Damages (2007-2012), for which she received two Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations. Then, after displaying some real comedic chops in 2006’s Marie Antoinette, she went on to anchor numerous comedic blockbusters, including 2010’s Get Him to the Greek, 2011’s Bridesmaids, for which she shared in a best ensemble SAG Award nom, and 2014’s Neighbors, for which she received a Critics Choice Award nom.
But Byrne, 46, who was recently described by Vanity Fair as “one of the most versatile and consistently watchable stars in the game,” has never been challenged to the extent that she was on her most recent project, Mary Bronstein’s semi-autobiographical, pitch-black comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which A24 began rolling out in theaters last Friday. The film, which centers on a woman whose life is literally and figuratively crashing down around her, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival before heading to the Berlin Film Festival, where Byrne was awarded the best actress prize. And in just a few months, it might well bring her the first Oscar nomination of her career.
Appearing in virtually every scene of the film, usually in a claustrophobically tight close-up, Byrne plays Linda, a therapist with a client (Danielle Macdonald) behaving oddly and a colleague (Conan O’Brien) losing patience with her; a wife whose husband (voiced by Christian Slater) has gone out of town just as their apartment’s roof has caved in; and a mother who is therefore forced to relocate with her sickly daughter to a motel run by some colorful characters (including A$AP Rocky). Bronstein has said that she needed as her leading lady “a fabulous actor, but also someone who could make these micro-choices with the details of their face,” and that Byrne fit that description to a T.
In a review out of Sundance, The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney wrote, “Byrne’s high-wire act remains riveting… It’s a bruising performance, digging deep into the intense pressure and isolation that can sometimes accompany motherhood with a mercilessness that makes Nightbitch look tame, while not excluding compassion. You feel for Linda as she struggles to keep her head from exploding when blinkered men fail to get just how crazy-making responsibility for a small child can be.”
