Rose Byrne has particular feelings about filming nude scenes.
“If [my character] is going to take her clothes off by the second, I’m like, ‘Oh my, God,’” Byrne, 46, said of her script “deal breakers” during the Monday, October 6, episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “I’m like, ‘Really? OK.’ That’s a tough one. [It’s like], ‘Why?’”
She continued, “Maybe there’s a great reason [and] who cares? It’s just a human body, like, blah blah blah, but I am just sensitive to that.”
According to Byrne, she’s previously seen “so many bad scripts” where the female protagonist strips down “for absolutely no reason.”
“It can absolutely make sense, I will say that, but I’m always like, ‘Really, OK, why does this? For what reason? Can anyone tell me?’” she quipped to host Josh Horowitz. “That’s probably one [deal breaker] or if they describe [the character] as a ‘really complicated woman’ or some wildly generic sort of description like that. It’s like, ‘Is she really? Oh my, God, thanks for letting me know.’”
Byrne further reflected on reading scripts for characters that follow the wife, girlfriend or “sexpot” archetypes during the early years of acting career.
“You know, particularly in comedy, there’s so many tropes with the woman being the nag,” the Australian actress said. “And the woman being, like, ‘I don’t want to have fun.’ I was so lucky because I had these north stars of Paul Feig and even Sofia [Coppola] when I did Marie Antoinette of, like, giving opportunities to women in ways that is not what was the usual source material.”
Byrne played Duchesse de Polignac in 2006’s Marie Antoinette, which she described on Monday as a “really small part” in the historical drama.
“That role was this irreverent, sort of indulgent duchess, who sort of corrupts Marie Antoinette and takes her out to drink,” Byrne recalled. “It’s a role full of comedy and frivolous behavior. It’s a very spontaneous way that Sofia [Coppola] works, and I think that was a real catalyst for me wanting to explore [comedic roles] after doing Damages for three seasons.”
She added, “Like any actor [knows] you’re going to get offered every serious lawyer part after that, and you have to be a little bit smart about trying to have some agency in charting a course that you hope will work out.”
Byrne starred as Ellen Parsons on legal thriller Damages, which ran from 2007 to 2012. After the show wrapped, she landed roles in the more comedic films of Get Him to the Greek and Bridesmaids.
“It felt similar to Marie Antoinette in terms of, ‘This is so far from what I have been doing on other jobs,’” Byrne said, specifically of working on Get Him to the Greek. “This was such a wildly unconventional character and totally irreverent and self-absorbed pop star, who was kind of, like, the female version of Russell Brand’s character. How fun was that? It wasn’t lost on me.”
Get Him to the Greek came out in 2010, one year before Bridesmaids hit theaters.
