She’s in three new movies.
In indie dramedyThe Meddler, she plays Susan Sarandon’s meddled-with daughter.
InX-Men: Apocalypse, she reprises the role of CIA Agent Moira MacTaggert.
Murray Close; Chuck Zlotnick; Larry Horricks
And inNeighbors 2: Sorority Rising, she returns as Kelly Radner, oft-pregnant scourge of the Greek system.
Pitched as a bro-heavy farce, the firstNeighborswas a stealth-missile showcase for Byrne.
“We just wanted to do the opposite of that.”
Lucasfilm
InNeighbors 2, Kelly and husband Mac (Seth Rogen) are older, and marginally wiser.
“She’s expecting her second child,” says Byrne.
“They’re becoming more conservative in a way.”
Alex Bailey
ROSE BYRNE:I got to work with Natalie.
I’m such a fan of her and her work.
She’s my age, and she was so lovely to me.
Leigh Johnson
I only had one line.
I worked heavily, months and months of work, with various acting coaches.
It was a lot of work, but me and George, we got there in the end.
David M. Russell
Byrne got to know oft-nominated screen icon Peter O’Toole, later her costar in the BBC’sCasanova.
I have an Irish heritage, and he was Irish, and he was obsessed with my name.
He smoked, even at age 70.
He was breathing very heavily going up these stairs.
One of the PAs said to him, “Peter, maybe you should give up the smokes!”
And he said, “Maybe I should give up stairs.”
Suzanne Hanover
BYRNE:It was actually the first time I got to do improv.
Sofia really encourages that with her scripts.
She wants it to be natural and organic.
Larry Horricks
Duchesse de Polignac was a socialite of her day, and a corruptor of Marie Antoinette.
She was sort of a Kate Moss of her day, a real partier.
It was a comic role.
I remember Sofia telling me, “She’s like a bottle of champagne, she just pops.”
The costumes were stunning.
I wore costumes fromBarry Lyndonthat Marisa Berenson wore.
The fast pace of TV-drama production was a new challenge.
BYRNE:Ellen starts out very naive: This fresh-off-the-boat law student, who’s just so eager.
It was a tough first season, because the audience was always one step ahead of the character.
It was challenging for me.
The workload is incredibly challenging on those shows.
It paralleled a bit what I was experiencing.
The budget forInsidiouswould’ve paid for a minute and a half ofTroy.
BYRNE:We shot that in 22 days for nothing.
It was so small, really fast, and dirty and fun, in a way!
I embraced that aspect of it.
And I’m Australian!
I come from making dirty little independent movies for three weeks!
And I enjoy horror films a lot.
The female-fronted comedy continues to dominate the zeitgeist half a decade later.
BYRNE:Helen’s so insecure, really, and controlling.
It all comes from a place of insecurity.
It was a fun character to unravel.
Working with so many women was so wonderful.
I’d never had that opportunity to do a project with a great cast of women.
I always thought women were funny.
BYRNE:Traditionally, she’d probably be a guy, that character.
I was looking to the classic Bond villains.
I really wanted to make her incredibly mysterious.
We really worked on the physical comedy.
