Rose Byrne

Actor

• Born: July 24, 1979
• Place of Birth: Balmain, Australia

Contribution: Rose Byrne is an Australian-born actor best known for her roles in Bridesmaids (2011), X-Men: First Class (2011), the FX and Audience Network series Damages (2007–12), and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).

Background

Mary Rose Byrne was born on July 24, 1979, in Balmain, Australia. She is the youngest child of Robin Byrne, a statistician, and Jane Byrne, a school administrator. Byrne has two older sisters, Alice and Lucy, and an older brother, George.

Byrne demonstrated a penchant for performing at an early age. Recognizing their daughter’s potential, her parents allowed her to begin taking acting classes offered by the Australian Theatre for Young People when she was just eight years old. When she was twelve, Byrne moved to north Sydney, where she later studied at Bradfield College for two years. While there, she immersed herself in the school’s prestigious drama program, further honing her skills in the hope of one day becoming a professional actor. She went on to enroll in the University of Sydney and later studied at the Atlantic Acting School in New York City.

Career

While still in her teens, Byrne was cast in her first film, Dallas Doll (1994), in which she appeared alongside American actor Sandra Bernhard. Byrne followed Dallas Doll with small roles in several Australian television series, including Echo Point, Wildside, and Heartbreak High.

Byrne returned to the big screen in the 1999 independent gangster film Two Hands, starring fellow Australian Heath Ledger. The following year she costarred in the independent film The Goddess of 1967, playing a blind girl who is left to her own devices after the death of her parents. In recognition of her performance, Byrne was nominated for the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award and was awarded the Volpi Cup at the Venice International Film Festival. These honors significantly increased Byrne’s visibility and helped establish her reputation as an actor.

Byrne’s Hollywood debut came in 2002, when she played the handmaiden Dormé in Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones. That small but high-profile role went a long way toward generating name recognition for Byrne among moviegoers, and she has noted that for years after the film’s release, the bulk of her fan letters came from fans of the Star Wars franchise. Byrne next took on roles in a string of follow-up films, including I Capture the Castle (2002), The Night We Called It a Day (2003), and Take Away (2003).

In 2004, Byrne appeared alongside Brad Pitt in Troy, playing a captured Trojan royal who begins a love affair with Pitt’s Achilles. The same year, she appeared in the drama Wicker Park as a scheming, manipulative woman who does everything she can to keep the man she desires from finding the woman with whom he is desperately in love. Branching out from there, Byrne obtained roles in a diverse range of projects, including the romantic television miniseries Casanova (2005), the artistically staged film Marie Antoinette (2006), and the horror film 28 Weeks Later (2007).

Beginning in 2007, Byrne segued back into television work, taking on the role of up-and-coming attorney Ellen Parsons in the legal drama Damages. Starring veteran actor Glenn Close and featuring numerous well-known performers, the series ran for three seasons on FX before transitioning to satellite provider DirecTV’s Audience Network for the final two seasons. Byrne was nominated for the Emmy Award for outstanding supporting actress in a drama series in 2009 and 2010 and received several other high-profile nominations.

Throughout her run on Damages, Byrne remained committed to film work, playing a young woman romantically torn between a boxer and a con man in The Tender Hook (2008), the love interest of comedian Russell Brand’s bad-boy rocker Aldous Snow in Get Him to the Greek (2010), and Renai Lambert, a mother facing a supernatural threat in Insidious (2011). Byrne received significant attention from moviegoers for her performances as Helen, an overachieving bridesmaid in the Academy Award–nominated comedy Bridesmaids (2011) and as CIA agent Moira MacTaggert in X-Men: First Class (2011).

Damages ended its final season in 2012, and Byrne went on to costar in the films I Give It a Year and The Internship. Although focusing primarily on film work, she made a guest appearance in the comedy series Portlandia. In the sequel to Insidious, titled Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), Byrne reprised her role from the earlier film.

Byrne followed up a starring role alongside Seth Rogen and Zac Efron in the comedy Neighbors (2014) with appearances in such films as Annie (2014) and Spy (2015). Due to the response to the first film, Byrne was able to reprise her role as a new parent attempting to live next to rowdy college students in the sequel Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising in 2016, and that year also saw her portray Moira MacTaggert once more for the next X-Men franchise installation, X-Men: Apocalypse. Open to applying her talents to a variety of genres, her subsequent film projects included parts in the horror film Insidious: The Last Key (2018), the family film Peter Rabbit (2018), and the comedy-drama Instant Family (2018). In 2019, she lent her voice to two live-action films, as the human-raising robot Mother in I Am Mother and as the digital assistant in the main character's phone in Jexi.

In 2020, she portrayed Gloria Steinem in the miniseries Mrs. America. Byrne reprised her role in the film sequel Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway in 2021 and again faced demonic forces in 2023 in Insidious: The Red Door.

Byrne was a series regular in the Apple TV streaming series Physical, about aerobics instructor competitiveness, from 2021 to 2023. She costarred with Rogen in Platonic, an Apple TV series about longtime pals, in 2023; the series was renewed for a second season. The pair, who were both executive producers, credited their comedy chemistry with successful pairings in various projects. In 2024, she voiced Leatherhead in the animated series Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Impact

Having turned her childhood ambition into a full-fledged career as an adult actor, Byrne has transitioned from appearing in soap operas and independent films primarily viewed in her native Australia to starring in major Hollywood films popular with audiences worldwide. Her performances in a diverse range of film and television projects have clearly demonstrated her versatility and solidified her reputation as a solid and reliable performer.

Personal Life

Byrne lives in New York City and also owns a house in East London. She is the mother of Rocco Robin Cannavale and Rafael Cannavale.

Bibliography

Ayers, Mike. “The Evolution of Rose Byrne.” GQ. Condé Nast, 11 July 2012. Web. 23 July 2013.

Bodey, Michael. “A Funny Thing Happened to Rose Byrne.” Australian. News Corp Australia, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 23 July 2013.

Cavendish, Lucy. “I Give It a Year: Rose Byrne Interview.” Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 6 Feb. 2013. Web. 23 July 2013.

Molitorisz, Sacha. “Rose Byrne, Accidental Star.” The Age. The Age Company, 5 July 2003. Web. 23 July 2013.

Tsekouras, Anna. “Interview: Rose Byrne.” Marie Claire. Yahoo! Lifestyle Network, 1 July 2011. Web. 23 July 2013.

Warner, Kara. "Ketamine Trips, Electric Scooters, Bucket Hats. Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne Get Physical." Los Angeles Times, 5 June 2024, www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/awards/story/2024-06-05/platonic-seth-rogen-rose-byrne. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.

Wolfe, Alexandra. "Rose Byrne Sharpens Her Comedy Skills." The Wall Street Journal, 3 Aug. 2018, www.wsj.com/articles/rose-byrne-sharpens-her-comedy-skills-1533317230. Accessed 31 Oct. 2019.