Amna Nawaz:
Known for both comedic and dramatic roles, Rose Byrne has already won a Golden Globe for best actress this award season for the psychological drama “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” She’s been acting professionally for more than 30 years, and now she’s up for her first Oscar.
Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown recently joined her in New York for our arts and culture series, Canvas.
Jeffrey Brown:
It’s a portrait of a woman coming undone, under so much pressure, it’s breaking her. In the film “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” Rose Byrne plays Linda, with a severely ill daughter hooked up to a feeding tube, an often absent second-guessing husband.
Things are so bad, the roof of her home literally collapses. a therapist herself, she’s in therapy. Conan O’Brien, in a dramatic turn, plays her unhelpful therapist. And she’s begging someone, anyone, to tell her what to do.
Rose Byrne, Actress:
But I’m asking you a thing, an actual thing, a problem to fix that I need help with this. Am I supposed to just sit around and watch her fail and this is just going to go on forever? What do I do?
Conan O’Brien, Actor:
OK, that means there’s no drinking, there’s no drugs, there’s no — you have to…
Rose Byrne:
Are you listening to me? Can you hear me?
Jeffrey Brown:
What this woman is going — what your character is going through can be hard to watch.
Rose Byrne:
I know.
(Laughter)
Jeffrey Brown:
You’re laughing now, but was it hard to play?
Rose Byrne:
There’s an element of just — like, of trying something, being on a dangerous tightrope every day. She’s unraveling. But when — how the unraveling looks and at which parts, so she’s trying to keep it together and when she really falls apart, so it was challenging, yes. I didn’t want to mess it up.
(Laughter)
Jeffrey Brown:
Now, 46, the Australian-born Brooklyn-based Byrne has done drama, including 2004’s “Troy,” horror in the “Insidious” series, and comedy foiled to Kristen Wiig in the 2011 film “Bridesmaids”…
Rose Byrne:
Can you stop? Stop.
Jeffrey Brown:
… and to Seth Rogen on the current Apple TV series “Platonic.”
“Legs” is based in part on director Mary Bronstein’s real-life experience with her daughter’s illness. Byrne says she and Bronstein spent hours and hours before production talking about the character, trying to get a grasp on her.
You have said that you like to know everything about a character, who she was before the moment we’re seeing you on camera.
Rose Byrne:
Yes.
Well, I was obsessed. Because we don’t get any information about her, I was just obsessed with who she was before she was a parent, when she was a teenager, like — and everyone’s going to respond differently to a crisis. And why is she responding like that? What is her temperament? What happened to her? What’s her story? And that actor’s homework stuff that’s so sort of boring, but that I…
Jeffrey Brown:
Yes, but not all actors like that. I mean, some actors just want to be dropped — right?
Rose Byrne:
Absolutely, absolutely.
Oh, I have worked with actors who don’t want to rehearse. They find it very disruptive, and they don’t want — they want to be completely authentic and in the moment and spontaneous. But I was just — I was less interested in, like, relating it to myself than relating it to this character of who she was.
Actress:
Mommy, Addie (ph) scares me. She only eat Nutella. I need you, to be with you.
Jeffrey Brown:
One of the most striking things about this film is your face is on camera, but in real close-up.
Rose Byrne:
I know.
(Laughter)
Jeffrey Brown:
We’re sitting pretty close, but it’s — but in the film…
Rose Byrne:
Yes, it was like a few inches from my face, yes.
Jeffrey Brown:
The camera was right there?
Rose Byrne:
I could hear it going click, click, click, click, because we were shooting on film, on 35.
Jeffrey Brown:
Yes. Yes.
Rose Byrne:
And so it’s an actual living thing.
And so I was contending with technically just drowning out the noise and giving Mary what she would need, but also trying to be also in the moment, so not — it’s a balance, right, that tightrope of, like, acting for the camera. But never have I had the camera that close to my face.
Jeffrey Brown:
But I’m curious and I’m imagining. Most people don’t know how this works for you as an actress with — vis-a-vis the camera.
Rose Byrne:
Yes.
Jeffrey Brown:
You know it’s there. But do you put it out of your head or…
Rose Byrne:
Yes, that’s a great question. It was like, I guess, I think every actor has a good, decent power to disassociate, for better or worse. And in this case, I dove deep into my ability to disassociate, because it’s so close, so everything is magnified 1000 percent.
It’s like, OK, what don’t you need? Just it’s just going to be minimal when it’s that close. And that was something I hadn’t really been required to do before on screen.
You keep telling us that it isn’t our fault.
Actress:
Yes.
Rose Byrne:
But it is.
Jeffrey Brown:
In other words, how much to withhold as well as let loose,and how much to use moments of dark comedy to leaven the pain of a woman questioning whether she should be a mother and whether she’s to blame for her child’s problems.
Rose Byrne:
She’s failed and that I failed.
Jeffrey Brown:
Byrne, herself the mother of two young boys with her longtime partner and fellow actor Bobby Cannavale, says the film taps into larger cultural issues around motherhood.
Rose Byrne:
It’s such a varied experience. And that is what’s so wonderful about this script is that it really showed a side that we don’t really see of a woman who’s like I don’t think I should be doing this.
And I was so fascinated with that. And who was she? Again, back to, like, I can relate, of course, to the relentless nature of being a parent, and she captures that raw kind of feeling when you’re really struggling. But I have not had a child with a serious illness, thank God, I mean, knock on wood, like that. And hopefully 99 percent of parents won’t go through what she went through.
We spoke to mothers who have children with special needs, and that was fascinating to see their varied experiences and what that was like.
Jeffrey Brown:
You mean as part of your preparation?
Rose Byrne:
Yes, part of the preparation. I have had — I have just had women come up to me from both — from all different worlds who’ve just said, I feel seen. I feel seen.
Jeffrey Brown:
Also to that end, Byrne co-founded Dollhouse Pictures with Australian friends and colleagues to prioritize female-driven storytelling.
Rose Byrne:
A lot of it is really also, I think, as an actor trying to find your own agency, because often you don’t have any and you’re sort of waiting for things to happen, and things come your way and things don’t.
So, I have been really inspired by other actresses who’ve done that before me, who just try to source material and find stuff and develop it.
Jeffrey Brown:
But are you satisfied with where you’re at right now?
Rose Byrne:
Oh, my gosh, I feel — and it’s funny. Yes, at a moment like this, you sort of naturally take stock a bit and reflect.
Jeffrey Brown:
Yes.
Rose Byrne:
I think I’m just still myself. But I feel very, very grateful.
Jeffrey Brown:
You’re going home from this interview, you said, to pick up the kids.
Rose Byrne:
Exactly, going to pick up kids.
Jeffrey Brown:
Right.
Rose Byrne:
But I feel very grateful. And it’s very — I feel very honored. And it’s surreal. And, again, the film is — it’s a small movie and it’s a challenging film, so it feels extra magic, yes.
Jeffrey Brown:
Rose Byrne goes for her first Oscar on March 15.
For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown in New York.
