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Years back, director Mary Bronstein’s daughter, then just seven, became gravely sick. Bronstein took her to San Diego for care, leaving her spouse in New York. “We were forced to cohabitate like strangers in this truly awful hotel,” Bronstein remembered. “There was nowhere to escape. I felt completely hemmed in.” Every evening, after her daughter was asleep by eight, Bronstein would hide in the bathroom with snacks and a low-cost wine bottle, grappling with what she now describes as an existential crisis. It wasn’t merely the pressure and the solitude—she also feared what awaited her on the other side, once her daughter recovered and Bronstein went back to her life as it was planned. “What am I really? Who exactly am I? What is my purpose?” she would ponder. Her stay lasted eight months.
Ultimately, her daughter did improve, and Bronstein funneled that experience into a script under the sharply pessimistic title “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” Her initial movie, the mumblecore comedy “Yeast” (2008), featured Bronstein and Greta Gerwig as friends in their twenties who embark on a camping trip and encounter a couple of fellows portrayed by Josh and Benny Safdie. “If I Had Legs” explores a vastly different life stage. The lead role, Linda, is a therapist living on Long Island and enduring a biblical sequence of misfortunes. Her daughter is underweight and requires a feeding tube. Her husband is away captaining a vessel. Water gushes from her ceiling and floods her residence, causing her and her child to move into a run-down motel. She is constantly harassed by a parking attendant at her daughter’s treatment center; one of her patients vanishes during a therapy appointment, leaving Linda with a crying infant. “Life is merely one thing after another to survive,” Linda bemoans. “Every goal is a precipice. There’s nothing at its end, but then it passes and there’s just another precipice.”
Bronstein composed the screenplay without a particular actress envisioned, just a blank slate—but she recognized she wanted to capture that face in relentless closeup, amplifying the sensation of confinement. “I understood, as I reached the story’s conclusion, that I was setting a high bar for whoever took on the part,” Bronstein confided in me. “Who would embody this character?” She contemplated the Australian actress Rose Byrne after viewing the opening episode of “Physical,” the Apple TV+ series where Byrne embodies a self-despising, Reagan-era housewife suffering from bulimia who gains strength through aerobics. Early on, we find her concealing herself in her restroom during the fading moments of a party, staring with disdain at her own attractive, relaxed face. “Look at yourself,” she says internally. “I mean, really. Do you honestly believe you’re succeeding at this? The disco-sex-kitten appearance, at your age?” Then she spots a pimple. Bronstein was convinced. “I simply knew,” Bronstein told me. “It’s her. It could be no one but her.”
After Byrne committed to “If I Had Legs,” the two women began meeting regularly at Bronstein’s apartment, situated in Chelsea, following their children’s school drop-offs. They would dissect the script, page by page, at the kitchen table, “then we’d review it again, starting over, pausing to engage in profound, personal dialogues concerning motherhood, womanhood, and our formative years,” Bronstein recalled. Byrne sought insight into Linda’s identity before the onslaught of troubles, before raising children disrupted her existence. They determined that Linda had been rebellious and unrestrained in her youth; she had not yet understood that parenthood would prove to be the most challenging experience she could impose on her own character.
At one point, Bronstein presented Byrne with her journals from her daughter’s illness, ones she had never even shared with her husband or therapist. These quickly penned notes about dosages, calorie counts, and doctor’s appointments brought the character’s predicament to life. “Something about viewing her penmanship and the written words profoundly affected me,” Byrne mentioned recently. “It instantly pulled me into the level of worry that Mary must have endured—and any parent would have. It resonated immensely, simply from these basic schedules recorded in the journals. I understood entirely.”
I encountered Byrne at a Carroll Gardens café, not far from her residence with her longtime partner, actor Bobby Cannavale, and their two sons, Rocco and Rafa. Byrne, at forty-six, donned a loose, pinstriped oxford shirt over an earth-toned blouse, paired with bold Mr. Boho sunglasses, which she had momentarily misplaced and then rediscovered in a jacket pocket. (“It’s just like finding five bucks!”) Removing them, she revealed eyes that gently curve downward at the corners, lending her face a serene air, and placed an order for herbal tea.
In “If I Had Legs,” launched by A24 this weekend, Byrne’s translucent face is under almost severe scrutiny—during filming, the camera frequently loomed so close that she could detect its whirring, capturing every imperfection. In one scene, we see her in a car’s rearview mirror as her daughter’s irritable voice fills the back seat, and Byrne portrays her distress through a repetitive twitch of her eye. Her hair appears limp, featuring an undercut—a vintage early-two-thousands style that Byrne selected to signify that Linda was “stuck.”
The film was unveiled at Sundance in January, then showcased at the Berlin International Film Festival, where Byrne was honored with the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. While it is generating early Oscar anticipation for her, that’s not solely because of the beautiful-actress-deglammed aspect—think Charlize Theron in “Monster”—it validates Byrne’s unusual depth and willingness to take risks. Ever since her rise to prominence, around the time that hairstyle was fashionable, she has starred in horror (“Insidious”), historical drama (“Troy”), sci-fi (“Sunshine”), legal thriller (“Damages”), comic-book adaptations (the X-Men series), distinguished miniseries (“Mrs. America,” as Gloria Steinem), and a musical (“Annie”), and she has unexpectedly become a regular in comedies, such as “Get Him to the Greek,” “Spy,” “Neighbors,” and “Bridesmaids,” where she embodies the pristine contrast to Kristen Wiig’s chaotic mess.
In the Apple TV+ sitcom “Platonic,” currently in its second season, Byrne portrays Sylvia, a stay-at-home mother who renews contact with an old hipster friend, Will (Seth Rogen). The show follows Sylvia’s endeavors to discover contentment beyond her illusion of domestic tranquility, be it by launching her own events business or getting playfully intoxicated with Will. However, Byrne’s funniest scenes stem from witnessing Sylvia’s composure collapse under duress. In a recent episode, she bursts out in frustration at her husband (Luke Macfarlane), who has abandoned his legal career to pursue detective novel writing. “Guess what?” she tells him in a tightly controlled tirade. “Given that you’re free today, perhaps you could drive the kids to school and take Simon to the orthodontist, and then, after the school run, you could bring Frances to her SAT prep, Simon to his bass lesson, and Maeve to Tae Kwon Do.” Nicholas Stoller, the show’s creator along with his wife, Francesca Delbanco, noted, “It’s sad, yet somewhat humorous. I believe that a solely dramatic actress might make the delivery feel bleak, but you wouldn’t necessarily find it believable with a purely comedic actress. She just conveys it with such authenticity.”
One could suggest that Byrne has crafted a pairing of overwhelmed mothers between “Platonic” and “If I Had Legs.” “Platonic” delivers Apatow-style comedy, while “If I Had Legs” envisions motherhood akin to a horror film, where the threat isn’t a killer with a chainsaw but the demands of middle adulthood. (One could describe it as “ ‘Uncut Gems’ for Moms!”—which is logical considering that Bronstein’s husband, Ronald Bronstein, co-wrote “Uncut Gems” alongside the Safdie brothers, and he and Josh Safdie are producers of “If I Had Legs.”) Yet, even my hinting at a shared theme caused Byrne to hesitate. “People will quickly offer you roles akin to your latest performance, especially if they appreciate your portrayal, and you’re subsequently presented with every stressed-out mom conceivable,” she said. “It becomes monotonous. I aspire to portray a composed C.E.O.!”
Byrne’s own mother, as she described, raised four children without ever losing her cool. “She possessed the most balanced, serene demeanor imaginable,” Byrne shared. This happened in Balmain, a Sydney suburb, where her mother was an administrator at a primary institution dedicated to Aboriginal children. Her father, a statistician, worked with the movie theater group Village Roadshow; Rose, as the youngest, assisted him by surveying neighborhood patrons about their movie preferences. (Her father also enjoyed betting on horse races and once succeeded in a superfecta, which requires accurately predicting the precise order of the top four finishers.)
Byrne began acting at eight with the Australian Theatre for Young People. At twelve, she secured her first film part in “Dallas Doll” (1994), starring Sandra Bernhard as a bisexual golf pro who seduces each member of an Australian family—except for the teen daughter, performed by Byrne. Soon after, Byrne took a role on the soap opera “Echo Point,” embodying a “naive teenager with a mysterious history,” she stated. The program sent her to shopping centers to meet fans, turning her into a teenybopper sensation. Her parents endorsed her acting pursuits (in a subtle, “very Australian fashion”), while encouraging her to maintain her focus on school. At eighteen, she filmed “Two Hands,” an Australian crime comedy, with Heath Ledger. She characterized him as “a giving spirit, somewhat reserved.” Furthermore, she was struck by his commitment to acting, something she lacked. “I recall him declining various uninspired television projects to hold out for better opportunities,” she mentioned. “That’s hard when you’re young.”
Byrne, by contrast, embraced every available opportunity. Even within Australia, the route to Hollywood was relatively straightforward in the nineties, already trodden by figures such as Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Guy Pearce, and Toni Collette. After being rejected by drama schools, Byrne enrolled at the University of Sydney, attending gender studies courses—reading Foucault introduced the idea that “gender is a social construct,” she declared—but she dropped out as acting jobs continued to come her way. In “Star Wars: Episode II—Attack of the Clones,” filmed in Australia, she played Natalie Portman’s handmaiden, uttering memorable lines such as, “It’s not me, milady. I’m concerned about you.”
By 2004, she secured notable ingenue roles in Hollywood productions: the romantic mystery “Wicker Park,” opposite Josh Hartnett, and the historical spectacle “Troy,” where she depicted Briseis, a captured priestess bestowed upon Brad Pitt’s Achilles. Peter O’Toole, portraying King Priam, surprised her by remarking that hers was the strongest character in the film—and entertained her with his understated British humor. “I recall him walking up some stairs, smoking and coughing,” Byrne recalled. “The A.D. said, ‘Peter, perhaps you should consider quitting smoking.’ And he replied, ‘Perhaps I should consider avoiding stairs.’ ” (Her impersonation was flawless.)
By then, Byrne had grown more deliberate in her acting choices—she spent a summer training with the Atlantic Theatre Company in Manhattan—but she didn’t view herself as humorous until being cast in Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” (2006) as the dilettantish Duchess of Polignac. Coppola prompted her to improvise, and she found a natural talent for comedic invention. In a scene, adorned in feathers and finery, she gossips with Kirsten Dunst’s Marie Antoinette in an opera box: “Observe how rotund the Marquis has become. I hope he doesn’t shatter the chair!” “That’s when I started to consider myself capable of pursuing comedy more seriously,” Byrne said. “I believe comedy is more challenging. We can all universally agree on sadness, but humor is far more subjective.”
Her comedic shift would have to pause for a time. Following a period living in London, she relocated to New York to co-star alongside Glenn Close in “Damages,” the FX legal drama, premiering in 2007 and running for five seasons. Byrne portrayed a fresh-faced yet astute junior attorney drawn into Close’s manipulative schemes. Like Elisabeth Moss in “Mad Men,” which arrived on cable in the same year, Byrne embodied an acolyte who transformed from tentative to dominant over the course of the show’s duration. Her performance cemented her reputation as a dramatic force and led to two Emmy nominations.
It wasn’t until Stoller began casting “Get Him to the Greek” (2010), featuring Russell Brand as the dissolute rocker Aldous Snow, that Byrne was able to fully express her comedic persona. She had intentionally sought comedic parts, but Stoller was puzzled when she auditioned for Jackie Q, Aldous’s wild pop-star girlfriend. “I was aware of Rose’s work from ‘Damages’ and ‘Sunshine,’ ” Stoller clarified. “When I saw that she was coming in for the audition, my initial thought was, Why is Rose Byrne reading for this? She’s so dramatic. Then she entered, and she just killed it. It was among the most hilarious auditions I’ve ever witnessed.” (The audition tape is available online.) On set, Stoller said, Byrne was an “improvisation dynamo,” especially during her “flirtatious exchanges with the subsequently disgraced Russell Brand.”
Before long, she was part of a wave of prominent twenty-tens comedies, including “Bridesmaids” (2011), considered to have the best female comedic cast since “All About Eve.” (She reunited with her co-star Melissa McCarthy in “Spy,” portraying a haughty antagonist.) In 2014, Stoller directed her once more in “Neighbors,” revolving around a conflict between a yuppie couple with an infant and a fraternity house next door. Playing Seth Rogen’s spouse might have relegated her to Katherine Heigl territory, but, Stoller recalled, “Her key note on that project, which was accurate, was, ‘I don’t want to be the stereotypical nagging wife.’ She said, ‘If I’m married to Seth, I’m his partner in crime.’ ” In one unforgettable moment, her breasts become so engorged with milk that her husband is compelled to express it—a type of crass physical humor typically reserved for male anatomy, not the sacred maternal form. (Stoller noted that Byrne had reservations about the scene until he ensured her that it had happened to the wife of one of the writers.)
Byrne’s rapport with Rogen was such that Stoller reunited them for “Platonic.” “She has an incredible knack for playing the underdog,” Stoller explained. “She embodies low status, but her eyes betray a yearning for high status.” The press was pleased, and slightly confused, that such a refined leading actress appeared to possess the spirit of Jonah Hill. Vanity Fair, in 2018, dubbed her a “Comic Superstar Flying Surprisingly Under the Radar,” impressed that, following “Damages,” she had veered away from the “predictable path: that of the dramatic actress who regularly appears in dreary Oscar contenders and somber indie productions.”
Those who are less generous may label “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” as just that: a gloomy Oscar bid and a downbeat indie piece. However, after over a decade of comedic performances, it reads as more of an unconventional turn for Byrne than an unavoidable one. At points, it delves into profound despair. In one sequence, Linda converses with her own therapist (performed, in a truly jarring bit of casting, by Conan O’Brien), who treats her with cold detachment. “Just instruct me on what to do,” she begs, sobbing and curling into a ball on his sofa. “I just need direction from someone.”
“When we filmed that moment, it carried so much emotional weight,” Bronstein informed me. “Later, Rose approached me, saying, ‘I’m not certain I nailed that.’ I responded, ‘Are you serious? You absolutely aced it. I wouldn’t have moved on if you hadn’t.’ I realized that she wasn’t concerned that her acting was poor—rather, she was still fully immersed in the feelings she had tapped into. She felt miserable as a person and couldn’t detach from it.”
Byrne was also sensitive to the script’s undercurrent of dark humor. In a moment of weakness, Linda succumbs to her daughter’s persistent desire for a pet hamster. During the drive home with the creature, it frantically claws at its container—Bronstein imagined Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”—and, amid the chaos, Linda’s vehicle is rear-ended. As she exits to confront the other driver, the hamster escapes, and then . . . we’ll just say that no hamsters suffered harm during the creation of this film.
Byrne, whose children with Cannavale are currently seven and nine, didn’t have to look far for inspiration on the escalating pandemonium of raising kids. “My household is quite noisy,” she explained. “Loud music, constant conversation. When I find moments of peace, I avoid listening to or viewing anything. I simply relish the silence. Everyone is perpetually increasing the volume at my house, while I seek to lower it.” When I brought up the hamster subplot in “If I Had Legs,” Byrne said, “Being a parent, I relate to that so deeply. Oh, the mistakes you make! You feel like you’re failing because you can’t provide the exact things your child wants. That isn’t their fault. I am the reason they aren’t more resilient or resourceful. And you immediately feel guilty; it’s unceasing.”
Rafa, one of Byrne’s sons, is desperate to have a pet chameleon, though she has so far resisted. Instead, he is eliciting his mother’s improvisational skills. “He continuously asks me, ‘Hey, Mom, what if we went outside and there was a chameleon on the road, and you had to scoop it up and give it to me? What would you do? Reenact it! Reenact it!’ ” Seated across from me, she acted out her portion: spotting the imaginary chameleon, collecting it, bringing it home. It’s curious that her son desires a chameleon when he already has one in her. ♦
Sourse: newyorker.com
