Play It Again: Actor Rose Byrne is a Woman on the Verge

Rose Byrne has taken many forms on-screen. In Mary Bronstein’s film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You https://www.fandango.com/if-i-had-legs-id-kick-you-2025-241791/movie-overview, she delivers a career-defining performance as a Long Island therapist and mother slowly unraveling under the weight of her child’s mysterious illness. Watch our conversation on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klWJFQ3s2co&t=289s. In the lead-up to Oscar Sunday, we return to our talk with Byrne, discussing the maternal madness at the heart of this film (6:30), the long, collaborative road to shaping the character (10:00), and what it was like to have Conan O’Brien as a scene partner (13:30). Then, Byrne reflects on her debut performance in Dallas Doll (19:45), the plays and poems that inspired her as a teenager (22:30), and a formative role in the cult classic Two Hands, opposite the late Heath Ledger (26:00). In the back half, we unpack the sexism she faced in Hollywood in the aughts (32:40), her unexpected comedic breakthrough in Bridesmaids and Neighbors (37:15), and the fruitful collaborations with Seth Rogen that followed (39:50). To close, Byrne pays tribute to two of her enduring artistic influences—filmmaker David Lynch (45:00) and playwright Arthur Miller (47:00). Original air date: October 12, 2025 As always, our email: [email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Sam Fragoso?

  This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Forgo, so welcome to the show.

• 0:33Sam Fragoso?

  Today, we're returning to our conversation with actor Rose Byrne. In the film If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, Byrne plays a Long Island therapist and mother navigating a whole host of issues: her child's mysterious illness, an absent husband, and an increasingly hostile relationship with her therapist colleague, played by Conan O'Brien. The film premiered at Sundance back in 2025, then played at the Berlin International Film Festival, where Rose won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. In recent months, that momentum has only continued. Byrne won her first Golden Globe back in January, before receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

• 1:17Sam Fragoso?

  For those who have followed Byrne's career over the last couple decades, this recognition feels long overdue. She's moved effortlessly between the comedic renaissance of bridesmaids, neighbors, and spy, the prestige drama of damages, and her memorable supporting turns in films like Marie Antoinette and Troy. But in Legs, Byrne delivers a truly career-defining performance that we wanted to highlight on the show once again in the lead-up to the Oscars. And so today, we discuss her collaboration with writer-director Mary Bronstein, her upbringing in Sydney, Australia, working alongside Heath Ledger as a teenager, moving to L.A. as a young 20-something, her breakout years in Hollywood, and a whole lot more.

• 2:02Sam Fragoso?

  Whether you're hearing this episode for the first time or returning to it today, I hope you enjoy it. You can also now watch this episode. Episode on YouTube. Just type in Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso, Rose Byrne on YouTube. We've also put the link in the description. If you haven't checked out last week's episode with writer-director Ryan Coogler, I'd recommend you do so. That's also on video on YouTube. It's one of my favorite episodes in a long, long time. And I want to also thank everyone who has reached out, folks who have listened or watched it. The response has been, you

• 2:40Sam Fragoso?

  know, overwhelming. And we're just so grateful that we got to make this episode happen. As I said, Ryan does not do a whole lot of interviews, especially not ones that are that long-form. So it was a thrill to do. If you haven't checked it out, again, it's on YouTube. It's also available wherever you are listening to this. As always, you can reach me at [email protected]. And so with that, here is my conversation with Oscar-nominated actor Rose Byrne. Enjoy.

• 3:33Sam Fragoso?

  Rose Byrne.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Hello, Sam.

• 3:35Sam Fragoso?

  Thank you for being here.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me. I'm so flattered and I'm very excited to be here.

• 3:41Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, I was talking to a friend recently. She's a mother to a young daughter. And she told me, the thing that really bothers her is that when she goes out in public with her friends, her friends always ask, before anything else, "How's your daughter doing?"

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 3:58Sam Fragoso?

  And thinking about this film, I feel like the only place I want to start is, "How are you doing?"

• 4:06Speaker 01

  I'm doing, look, I'm doing good. I am.

• 4:10Sam Fragoso?

  I love when someone goes, look.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  I know, it's such a tell. I'll tell you what's interesting about this experience is this film premiered at Sundance, and that's in January, and we're now October 1st. And I've never had that experience where you're shepherding a film from then to today, where I sit with you. So, but I've also been doing this a long time. So I'm just like, I'm a one day at a time sort of person anyway, one thing at a time.

• 4:32Sam Fragoso?

  So the film is called If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, and it's from writer-director Mary Bronstein. The two of you began working on the script during the actor's strike in the summer of 2023, poring over all the details of the character, trying to get it right. How would you describe Linda to someone who hasn't seen the film yet?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Well, the audience is very much dropped into a crisis in the film, and not much is explained about her, very little, like, nothing is explained about her. Your hand is not held throughout this film. There is no sort of establishing dialogue about, well, when I lived in blah, blah, blah, or after I graduated from here, or nothing is spoon-fed, nothing is given to you.

• 5:11Sam Fragoso?

  It begins on a close-up of your face.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Begins a close-up of her, a very, very tight close-up on this character, Linda, and she's slowly revealed to us through the film, but she is an agent of chaos, absolutely. And yes, it was really was, obviously, my job to figure out who she was.

• 5:26Sam Fragoso?

  How did she change in that script-writing process when the two of you were poring over her details?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  She didn't so as much change as she came to life more and more, and trapped with this sort of character is it can be one note. She's in a crisis and it only gets worse. And how do we avoid the pitfalls of just hysteria in every scene? And my obsession was who was she before? You know, everyone responds very differently to a crisis, so that was my job, yeah.

• 5:52Sam Fragoso?

  So crisis-wise, she's a mother and a therapist. She has a child with a mysterious illness, patients who have their own problems, a husband who's away on work and fairly absent. And then she has a therapist of her own, played by Conan O'Brien, who doesn't seem to be able to help her at all. How do you hold it together in a 30-day shoot and mon-talk, trying to keep everything at bay?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Well, Mary Bronstein, the writer-director, was very protective of the performance and of what I had to do and my job. And an independent film is chaotic and one day is not the same as the next. You know, we did this in 27 days on not much money and it was ambitious. There's ambitious sequences in this movie. So I felt that, I felt that when I was doing it, but really also after I was doing it too, I realized how much she had cocooned me in a way, in the best possible way, that I wasn't too.

• 6:46Sam Fragoso?

  She's shielded.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, she did. And we had this great rehearsal period and I think without that I would have been pretty untethered. But she was my touchstone. We were very much in lockstep throughout the whole thing.

• 6:57Sam Fragoso?

  I read that at night.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  At night, you started taking drugs. No.

• 7:01Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. Which is, I think the performance got better once you started taking drugs and.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Always does. Look at, look at the great, look at the great performances.

• 7:08Sam Fragoso?

  Do you want to name some of them?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Um, Dennis Hopper. I mean, let's just go for the obvious.

• 7:12Sam Fragoso?

  So that was a little bit of a life informing the performance.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yes, that's true.

• 7:16Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, I'm not really sure he knew when the cameras were on and when they were off.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I worked with him early in my career in Australia and he, he was actually very charming, as you can imagine, but he didn't, um, he didn't like rehearsal. He didn't want to rehearse. He didn't even, we barely got through a read through of this very strange little movie we did. But in any case, yes, Dennis anecdote, why digress?

• 7:37Sam Fragoso?

  When you're on this set and then you go home at night, um, I read that you would send Mary long and passionate text messages.

• 7:47Sam Fragoso?

  What was the inner monologue coming out in those text messages?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Just my neuroses.

• 7:51Sam Fragoso?

  Right, let's get it out here.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  Oh, hope you got this. Was that okay? I'm not sure. Miss you, lol. You know, just like that kind of things. And did we get this? And was that enough? And how did that look? And how did this go? You know, what, how did the, you know, checking in about that stuff? So I was protective of it and I was just protective of what we were doing and yeah.

• 8:09Sam Fragoso?

  You told Vanity Fair, my main goal was to quote, not fuck it up.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Not fuck it up. I didn't want to fuck it up.

• 8:16Sam Fragoso?

  And, and what do you do to not fuck it up?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  You text a lot.

• 8:20Sam Fragoso?

  Okay.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  You don't sleep.

• 8:21Sam Fragoso?

  That's part of the process.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  That's part of my process.

• 8:24Sam Fragoso?

  This is a church and state question. Do you think actors should have the cell phone numbers of their directors during production?

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Oh, so fascinating.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  I do, but I know that that can always not end well. I'm sure you've had people sat in this chair where it didn't end well.

• 8:43Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  So it could be a gamble, but I don't know how you, particularly with something like Legs, I'm not sure how you could get around it without having the cell number.

• 8:52Sam Fragoso?

  My last character question, you went to the Atlantic Theatre Company.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  I did.

• 8:56Sam Fragoso?

  Studied with, with David Mamet.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Well, he wasn't there, but he's, it's his school.

• 9:01Sam Fragoso?

  Yes.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  We had Macy came in and taught us. It was a summer program.

• 9:04Sam Fragoso?

  He's, he's, I wouldn't say he's a friend of the show, but he's a, maybe a foe of the show, or he's certainly been on the show.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:11Sam Fragoso?

  But I'm curious, I can separate art from artist, even if artists compare me to Hitler. I'm gonna do it.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  What a reference, eh? If you say that, good lord.

• 9:20Sam Fragoso?

  For this character in this film, how would you explain the human impulses behind her behavior? Because that seems to be at the heart of some of the teachings at Atlantic Theatre Company.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  I love that. Well, her impulse is to escape. She's just trying to escape. She's trying to escape constantly. She cannot be where she is. She can't see anything in front of her and she can't really hear anything either. She's very disassociated and she's also self-destructs throughout the film physically as well. She's not sleeping and she's drinking and doing drugs and that sort of to add on top of the trauma of what's happening. Yeah.

• 9:57Sam Fragoso?

  The child in the film, it's basically a disembodied voice. You don't see the kid for 99.9% of the movie. When you read the script, did you think it was more like a horror film or a documentary?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  It had some like horror tropes in it for sure. And when I saw the film, I really recognized that and have been in films like that. But there's also some straight, straight drama in the movie and I think big comedic set pieces in the film for my money. So it really does defy genre in a kind of punk rock way. It's been great to now have people see it and everyone has a different experience. I'm still discovering things about the movie.

• 10:36Sam Fragoso?

  I have a lot of feelings about the movie.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  I can't wait.

• 10:38Sam Fragoso?

  We will come back to it at the end, but before we move on, why don't we play a clip from one of those drama comedy set pieces?

• 10:45Speaker 01

  Yes, please.

• 10:46Sam Fragoso?

  Where you're straddling the line. This is you in a therapist's office with your therapist, played by Conan O'Brien.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  You didn't respond to the email that I sent you about my dream. I don't respond to my clients' dream emails. Okay, so if you don't bring it up, then what is the point?

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Okay, you got me.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  I had a dream, and I need to talk about it today. And I didn't get any time because you didn't give me a warning.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  We can discuss the dream you emailed the next session.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Well, it's actually a different dream.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Well, I don't really...

• 11:24Speaker 01

  About you.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Okay, quickly.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Okay, I was in a hospital day room, or a recreation room, or something. And I knew my daughter was also in the hospital, but far away, another part. And it didn't look like the hospital she was in last year, though, when everything happened. It was different. It was weird. And I was waiting for Charles to come get me so we could pick her up. But instead, you were there, and you wanted to sit really close to me. And I was inching away from you on the bench, and you kept inching closer. And I got my phone out to text Charles because I was nervous he'd come in and he'd see. And then you tried to grab the phone, and then you started to tickle me to try to get me to drop it. And I was like...

• 12:16Speaker 01

  I was really enjoying it, but I was so scared that Charles would come in and he would see.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  All right.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Okay?

• 12:30Speaker 02

  All right, you got to tell me. We'll talk about it next time.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  We won't talk about it next time. You know that. There's no thread. There's no thread at all.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Oh my god. It's so dumb. That scene, to me, is about his regret, that he said, "Tell me a dream." It's so funny. The regret playing out so beautifully on Conan's face is just, to me, hysterical. That, to me, is the comedy of that beat, is his deep, profound regret. "I've gotta listen to this bitch talk about..." On her fucking dream, kill me. And her, again, oblivious delight in telling the story. To me, that's the love story in the movies between those two.

• 13:19Sam Fragoso?

  The two of them.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:20Sam Fragoso?

  You know, when we show clips to most actors.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Oh, God, what do they do?

• 13:26Sam Fragoso?

  They're not as excited about it as you are.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  But it's my nerves. It's my nerves, Sam.

• 13:32Sam Fragoso?

  Is your nerves watching it together right now?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 13:35Sam Fragoso?

  What are we nervous about?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Feeling self-conscious. It's a cover up for sure. Obviously feeling a little self-conscious to watch myself, but I'm a good audience. And to me, Conan in that scene.

• 13:45Sam Fragoso?

  You are a good audience. You have a good laugh.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Thank you. I'm a good audience. Yes, my children are constantly making fun of my love.

• 13:50Sam Fragoso?

  How do they make fun of it?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  They just imitate me. Ha, ha, ha, ha. And they do an imitation. And I'm like, all right, okay, okay, got it.

• 13:57Sam Fragoso?

  Have you ever had a therapist like the one Conan is playing there?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  No, I have not. Like, this is the love story of the film. And it's at the bitter end where it's really bad. Like, he's doing a bad job. They're misbehaving. And it's like awkward and it's, you know.

• 14:14Sam Fragoso?

  Are you a laying on the couch kind of patient?

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I've done the couch, lying down, and that was one thing. Yeah, it's one way to go.

• 14:21Sam Fragoso?

  I don't like that.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Hmm, yeah.

• 14:22Sam Fragoso?

  No, I like it for you. It's your therapy. You do what you want to do. I get very uncomfortable.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  It's, well, it's supposed to be, right? Isn't it?

• 14:31Sam Fragoso?

  I feel it's a little bit of a hat on a hat. Like, therapy is already vulnerable.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:35Sam Fragoso?

  I don't want to be horizontal with someone I'm paying.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  I get, I appreciate that. I felt like, well, it just feels so, it feels like a cliche, doesn't it? To you also feel like you're.

• 14:46Sam Fragoso?

  In a Woody Allen.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  You already feel like you're in a Woody Allen movie. Exactly.

• 14:51Sam Fragoso?

  Look, I don't want to play the role of the therapist, although the show sometimes feels therapeutic.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  I'm sure it does. Good lord, yes.

• 14:57Sam Fragoso?

  But I am interested in your childhood.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 15:00Sam Fragoso?

  I'm sorry.

• 15:02Sam Fragoso?

  Growing up in a suburb of Sydney, as the youngest of four, your mother, a primary school administrator, your father, a statistician by day, racetrack gambler by night. Your brother George said once of you, "You were always a performer."

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 15:18Sam Fragoso?

  Rose was, quote, "very cute and trying to impress us by being a clown." She was also a bit of an attention seeker.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness. Well, he was there, I guess.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  There's got to be some truth. But at the same time, I was also shy. So I was a bit of both, which is a weird thing for an actor. People are like, actors aren't shy. But there's an element, I think, of that in a lot of actors who can be shy and find performing like what a great escape. You're allowed to be somebody else in this that's not shy. And it's a weird, it's a license that you get, so.

• 15:54Sam Fragoso?

  What were you shy about?

• 15:55Speaker 01

  I think I was just shy, trying to fit in. Not the most vivacious socially type thing. I was more of a backseat observer.

• 16:02Sam Fragoso?

  Is that because you were the youngest?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  I'm sure it's got something to do with that, like birth order, all those sorts of things. But youngest of four was kind of fabulous, too. Like, what a great, we always had such a chaotic, lovely house with people coming in and out, and it was very open. And we were in a really great neighborhood. We were friends with all our neighbors and yeah.

• 16:21Sam Fragoso?

  Your older sister had a friend named Rosie, I believe, who said, "I think Rose should start acting." Why did she say that?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Well, she was an actress and she was going to the Australian Theatre for Young People, which was a youth theatre that had great programmes for young kids. And I loved it. I was a ham. I remember putting on shows. I played Mary Poppins in the school play. Like, I was absolutely a ham. And then going to drama class, I just loved it. I loved it.

• 16:50Sam Fragoso?

  Did it make sense to you from the jump?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  It did in as much as a little kid can make, you know, as a child. Like, I remember reassessing, like, later on, going to uni and stuff. Like, do I really want to do acting? Is this just because I've done it for so long? You know, like, is it habit or is it love? You know, what is it? So that was something I wrestled with later.

• 17:08Sam Fragoso?

  What was your first paid job?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  I did a film called Dallas Doll, opposite Sandra Bernhardt, about a dysfunctional family and this American woman, this interloper comes in and has an affair with my mother and sweeps her off her feet. And I was the daughter, it was a supporting role.

• 17:24Sam Fragoso?

  You're like a young girl who's obsessed with UFOs, right?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yes, that's right. Oh, my gosh. I remember my lines now, that's right.

• 17:32Sam Fragoso?

  You know what? We don't even have to remember the lines because we have them here.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  This is like punked.

• 17:37Sam Fragoso?

  I thought we could kind of perform

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness.

• 17:42Sam Fragoso?

  One of these early scenes together.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  This is my audition scene.

• 17:45Sam Fragoso?

  This is your audition scene?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wow, that's so... This is like a full core body memory moment. That's so weird. It's my first audition, I remember.

• 17:55Sam Fragoso?

  That's amazing.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  I remember learning it.

• 17:57Sam Fragoso?

  You played the young girl, her name was?

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Rastus.

• 18:00Sam Fragoso?

  And I guess I'll play the Sandra Bernhardt part. The scene in the film is set outside in a, like, cornfield or something.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Yes, I think you're right.

• 18:10Sam Fragoso?

  It's nighttime.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yep, we're gonna do this?

• 18:12Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, I'm gonna do it. All right. What you looking for, Rastus? Charlie tells me you think you could find a UFO.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Charlie's got a big mouth.

• 18:20Sam Fragoso?

  What do you do if you see one?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  What's it to you?

• 18:23Sam Fragoso?

  Just curious, you spend a lot of time out here. I just want you to know something. If there's anything on your mind, you can always talk to me.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  There is something. How long you staying?

• 18:32Sam Fragoso?

  You've got a lot of aggression in you, Rastus. I gotta tell you something, honey. There's no such thing as UFOs.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Bullshit. It's proof anyway. Circles in cornfields and photos.

• 18:42Sam Fragoso?

  And frauds. Two old Englishmen went around making the cornfield circles. Didn't you read about it? They owned up to it. Said they'd been going around making them for years.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, even if it is bullshit, at least it's my bullshit. I'd rather swallow that than your crap.

• 18:56Sam Fragoso?

  Your mom wants you in for bed.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Scene.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 19:03Sam Fragoso?

  You said this was a core memory.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  It really was. Like, I remember that my intonation, reading it, and like, I remember like, working on it, and her defensiveness, and, you know, like, she's got to be aggressive in the scene, and I, yeah.

• 19:16Sam Fragoso?

  Did you feel after having made the film, you're like, okay, I think I could do this?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I mean, in that blissfully ignorant way, absolutely.

• 19:23Sam Fragoso?

  How long does the blissful ignorance last?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  About, um, six months, I think, and then probably I continued to audition, and then obviously didn't get parts, and then ended up doing a soap opera when I was 15. But, you know, I went back to school, and that's like, you just go back to reality and you're not in that. So, and my parents were incredibly, like, down-to-earth people who were always sort of going, well, let's see, you know, no, it's hard, it's, they didn't know anything about the business, but they were always trying to be practical about it.

• 19:51Sam Fragoso?

  So you go to high school, and you have a teacher there named Sharon Roberts.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, at Bradford College, yeah, in year 11 and 12.

• 19:59Sam Fragoso?

  She describes one of your performances as a cockroach scuttling about, which she said wasn't a particularly inspired choice.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, she's entitled to her opinion, but yes.

• 20:12Sam Fragoso?

  But the monologue that she developed for a 1997 HSC regional competition apparently was very good. So what, what was this? Because it seems like a kind of turning point.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  It was an amalgamation of a few things. I'm not going to remember it correctly, but some of it was from, this is going to sound ridiculous, because it is ridiculous. Some of it was Blanche Dubois from Streetcar Named Desire, and some of it was some poetry that my sister was studying at university at the time, and I can't remember the poetry, so I won't try to make it up. And then I think a little bit of free-form writing.

• 20:47Sam Fragoso?

  Of your own?

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Of my own. Self devised piece. Ridiculous. Yeah, it was like a self devised piece with all of those things. It sounds insane, and I think it was insane.

• 20:58Sam Fragoso?

  And yet the insanity won.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Sharon Roberts clearly has.

• 21:03Sam Fragoso?

  She has held on to that performance.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  And the cockroach.

• 21:05Sam Fragoso?

  You said the blissful ignorance went away after six months.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:08Sam Fragoso?

  As a late teenager, thinking about going to America and acting, what was your ambition? What did you think you wanted to do?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Hmm. I was very aware by that point. And look, I had it completely regular. I was at high school. Like, I had a regular childhood. I wasn't a child celebrity like some other actors who started very young. But I did audition. I did this short-lived soap opera, so I was working. And then I finished school and, like all good Aussies, I took time off and like went backpacking and stuff and went to uni. But I loved acting and I continued to do it. I auditioned for all drama schools. Like, it was, I did a TV show called Wild Side, which was pivotal. I worked with this coach called Nico Lathorus, who introduced me to practical aesthetics. So that took me to New York. So I was, I was on a journey of creativity, for sure.

• 21:55Sam Fragoso?

  As a student, how would you explain what practical aesthetics are for people who've studied under Mamet?

• 22:00Speaker 01

  It's the words, right, on the most simple level. Like, practical aesthetics is very writer-driven and it's really like, in the driest sense, it's like words on a page. There is no character. You just say the words and that's it.

• 22:12Sam Fragoso?

  I asked David Mamet what makes a good actor and he says, well, they, they can act.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Which I kind of love. Like, I kind of like, I love that.

• 22:18Sam Fragoso?

  And I was like, well, how do you know when they're good? And he's like, well, because you watch and they're good. I think his quote was, uh, they just say the fucking lines.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  That's kind of it.

• 22:26Sam Fragoso?

  But can I say, people just watched the two of us, quote, say the fucking lines. And it's really clear.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  That I was terrible. Me, Rose.

• 22:37Sam Fragoso?

  No, it's really clear one is good at it and one is reading lines on the page. Because you're not really just reading lines on the page.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  And there's the nuance. It's very nuanced. And there is a whole series of steps to the process. And there's many books to speak to this and obviously the whole program there at Atlantic. But it very much spoke to me and it became a sort of cult in Australia. This, it took off and it was brought over by this wonderful actress, Melissa Bruder. And she started to bring teachers out to Australia. In any case, I ended up studying, yeah, at a summer program at the Atlantic, which was so fun.

• 23:12Sam Fragoso?

  I think it's around this time that you star in this now, like, cult classic of a film called Two Hands. It's with late Heath Ledger and I want to watch a scene from that.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Okay. Oh, good. Good Lord. Should I just lie down?

• 23:26Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah, we're, we're getting close to therapy, so. And so this is Rose using all the practical aesthetic education.

• 23:36Sam Fragoso?

  Here in this scene, let's take a look.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  So you're from the country, eh?

• 23:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, what's it like out there?

• 23:44Speaker 04

  I don't know, less buildings, more cows.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  You got a horse, you'll ride?

• 23:50Speaker 04

  No.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Then what do you do?

• 23:55Speaker 04

  Um, not much really, just muck around, you know, it's pretty boring.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  So, you're like a strip club guy, hey?

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, no, I've been doing that for a while, yeah, but I've got a new job. And you could say I'm moving on.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, what are you doing?

• 24:13Speaker 03

  I'm, um, yeah, I'm doing, I'm working for a guy, you know, just doing our jobs here and there. That sort of thing.

• 24:21Speaker 04

  Oh, right, it's like a handyman?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Hey, what about you, got any photos?

• 24:28Speaker 04

  No, not really.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  Hey, let me take one of you. Come on, let me take one. Look, I promise you, I'm not gonna run up with your camera.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  You gotta do something.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  What do you want me to do?

• 24:52Speaker 03

  I don't know, something.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Oh, kids, just kids.

• 24:59Sam Fragoso?

  What do you make watching that one?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  You know, it's obviously very, you know, there's a sadness to it. It's like, that's interesting just watching Heath's performance. He was such a natural and could hit every beat, you know, without you realising or without seeing any homework, just very, I don't know. He had a self-possession about him, even though he was also quite shy. Yeah, there's a nostalgia for sure, yeah.

• 25:24Sam Fragoso?

  I feel like even in that scene, I can hear it, but also looking at you, some of the moves you do now are already there.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Good, blow up my spot.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Oh, God, really? I feel self-conscious in that scene. I don't think I'm particularly good.

• 25:44Sam Fragoso?

  But the character's self-conscious in that scene.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Well, that's fair enough. Yeah, I suppose.

• 25:48Sam Fragoso?

  This is a woman who likes to be behind the camera.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, a young girl.

• 25:52Sam Fragoso?

  A young girl.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Really, barely a woman. It's a sweet scene, yeah.

• 25:55Sam Fragoso?

  You know, that film really did a whole lot for you. Like, basically, you start coming to America after that. And there's this period that I'm fascinated by. You're in your early twenties, in Los Angeles, going out to auditions. And I read somewhere that during that time, you also take a creative writing class.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:17Sam Fragoso?

  At UCLA.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Good lord, I am gonna lie down. I did. I didn't finish it. I did not finish it, but I did. I did a creative writing course, yeah.

• 26:26Sam Fragoso?

  You said, quote, "I have to do something with my mind while I'm here, and I like writing short stories. Also, being on university campus makes me feel young again."

• 26:35Speaker 01

  I was young. What was I talking about?

• 26:36Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  I was like 21. But those things are true. I was a jobbing actor. I was trying to get jobs. It's a weird town. I was, yeah, a roommate recommended it, and I do love university campuses. All those things is true.

• 26:50Sam Fragoso?

  This is not a true or false interview.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  It's not? It is for me.

• 26:53Sam Fragoso?

  You're not under arrest. This isn't an investigation. I can't tell if you think we're in a therapy scene or like a scene from Law and Order.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Or a Law and Order, yeah. I'm like the defense attorney for the young Rose Byrne.

• 27:05Sam Fragoso?

  Mariska Hargitay's gonna come in anytime.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Benson.

• 27:08Sam Fragoso?

  Ten on, ten on, ten.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Amazing. Come on, iconic.

• 27:10Sam Fragoso?

  The best show. The reason I brought it up was not just to embarrass you. Actually, it wasn't meant to embarrass you at all. I found it very interesting that a young actor was like, I actually also want to do creative writing.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  I think at that, I deferred university at that point, but I was always an English literature major. I always loved to read. I was a nerd, and I was trying to not fall in the trap of those sort of young actor tropes of just driving around Hollywood and losing your mind. And not that I was like partying or anything, but just more trying to keep inspired.

• 27:42Sam Fragoso?

  What was the culture in the audition process at that time? Because I feel like in my head, it's the audition scene from Mulholland Drive.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh, it was neither of those things. And I, you know, I was really, I didn't have any horrible casting couch stories. And I know that that's legitimately, I've, you know, a lot of, obviously, that's been, I've totally exposed and about time to talk about that. But I didn't, I didn't have any of those. It was generally, you know, the usual humiliating kind of things of not getting the part or being dismissed of. The worst is when you have to wait, when you have to wait for over an hour and you're stuck in the room with all these other actors going in. And that, that can be, that's pretty miserable.

• 28:20Sam Fragoso?

  How were you in those like touch and go periods? Because it wasn't until damages that it was consistent. How did you deal with that?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Up and down, up and down. I always wanted to finish my degree. I was constantly returning to Australia. I would work in Australia, like-

• 28:33Sam Fragoso?

  This finishing degree thing, in almost every interview, you talk about this guilt of not finishing the degree. What's that about?

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Let's unpack it. What, what is that? I don't think it's exclusive to me, but there's some sense of achievement or accomplishment or legitimacy that I can finish a degree, that I have some proof of it and that I have knowledge of other-

• 28:54Sam Fragoso?

  Was it for your parents?

• 28:55Speaker 01

  I'm sure there's a subconscious thing of my parents, but they were never pushy. They're not-

• 28:59Sam Fragoso?

  They were supportive.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  They were very, very supportive. But I was chatting about it with someone too the other night about, I never finished my degree either. And we were like going back and forth with theories and then talking about now, how like a lot of people don't even go to college. And what do you tell your kids? You probably should get them to learn a trade because AI is going to take everybody's jobs anyway. So we should be, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I'm sure it's some sense of like legitimacy of having a, having some, some knowledge outside of just being self-taught or self-educated or whatever.

• 29:32Sam Fragoso?

  We'll be right back with actor Rose Byrne.

• 29:51Sam Fragoso?

  There are a lot of podcasts out there and plenty of ways to do an interview, but my preference has always been to do these in person. There's nothing better than sitting across the table and being face to face with someone, which is why I try to meet guests where they are, both metaphorically and geographically. And to do that, I have to do a lot of traveling. So I pack up my gear, get on a plane and head to Philadelphia to talk to Terry Gross, or New York City for Viola Davis, or Santa Barbara for Gwyneth Paltrow. And so I'm in these cities away from my home and I'm always sitting there thinking, someone should enjoy my place, right? Imagine you're traveling and instead of worrying about your idle apartment or home, at least that's what I do, you can make some extra money by hosting your place on Airbnb.

• 30:35Sam Fragoso?

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• 30:51Sam Fragoso?

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• 31:34Sam Fragoso?

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• 32:15Sam Fragoso?

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• 32:36Sam Fragoso?

  I will say, you know, post damages and in between you turning into this like comedic actor that people seek out. The way the press described you, it was very odd. It was very like of a 2000s moment.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Fascinating. Tell me.

• 32:51Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I'll tell you that all the women on our team were reading the quotes and all of them had the kind of like ick emoji. And I want to pull one piece up from Esquire. This is from 2008.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:04Sam Fragoso?

  And I want to hold it because it feels like it's 1987 and 1997, but it was like, this is from 2007, 2008. And I just want you to see this piece from Esquire.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Wow. Funny joke from a beautiful woman. Wow. Oh, my God, that is, that's ill. It's ill, isn't it? It's ill.

• 33:24Sam Fragoso?

  So it was a recurring series from Esquire called Funny Joke From A Beautiful Woman.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Wow. Isn't that amazing? Oh, my God. Hopefully, you couldn't do that now.

• 33:32Sam Fragoso?

  You think that's like from the 50s?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  You do.

• 33:34Sam Fragoso?

  That's not that long ago.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  And like the tragedy of like feeling like I had to do that. Like that is like what I call into question of like, I hope now actresses are not put through that because it is so humiliating and like.

• 33:49Sam Fragoso?

  Did you feel like you had to do it?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Of course. No, you think like, it's such a window and I'm not going to get work and this and that. And like, obviously, it's a harmless joke and a thing. Like, I, but I hope people aren't having to be put through those ridiculous, reductive sexist, you know, articles like that. That's really.

• 34:08Sam Fragoso?

  It's like, it's true. Like, that's, it's just one small piece in a magazine.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. It's amazing. You know, I played Gloria Steinem in Mrs. America. And revisiting what she went through in the press and what there was this extraordinary interview there on some like television show where she's been followed around like they're filming her ironing and doing her hair and like this like bizarre sequence of like establishing this beautiful woman as also a thinking man's crumpet like this sort of like and it's so wildly dated and insulting and he's so sleazy this reporter and she's just tolerating this thing and and that's sort of a version of that in in a different way but it's the same thing of being put in this uncomfortable position by a man

• 34:56Speaker 01

  to seem funny and behind a glorious item's eyes she's just steely, you know, but it's this performance that women are asked to do.

• 35:06Sam Fragoso?

  That's like these small concessions.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yes, this quiet tolerance, these small concessions.

• 35:10Sam Fragoso?

  Being asked every day.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was still going on in two thousand and eight.

• 35:14Sam Fragoso?

  When does that change for you?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  I think I aged out of it pretty quickly in the sense of like I'm uncomfortable, I don't want to do that again, I don't want to do that anymore or and it's different for everyone, I mean, like of when that would happen, but I think it was pretty soon after, was that two thousand?

• 35:29Sam Fragoso?

  Two thousand eight, two thousand nine.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  I feel like it must have, I I hope.

• 35:32Sam Fragoso?

  It's around that time that you auditioned for Get Him to the Greek. And we do have that audition here.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Is this what you did to Mamet?

• 35:41Sam Fragoso?

  Oh, that's why I walked out. No, I'm kidding. You walked out for a lot of other way worse reasons.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  Okay, okay.

• 35:48Speaker 05

  Are you drunk?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:51Speaker 05

  Well, I had this party on the condition that you wouldn't be getting an evening.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  No, I know that, but I thought to myself, I just turned twenty five and, you know, fuck it. I want a fucking drink, so now I'm drunk.

• 36:03Speaker 05

  But you could have warned me.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Well, I'm drunk, beer. Now, you've been warned.

• 36:08Speaker 05

  That's not really supportive.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a bit sick of supporting you, you know, you fucking brag that you keep your addictions, but you haven't at all. Instead of being hooked on smack, you're hooked on me. And if I wasn't around, you'd go straight back to doing drugs. Do you have any idea what sort of pressure that I'm under?

• 36:25Speaker 05

  All right, all right, come on, it's time for.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  I am a prisoner to this man. This is like a fucking kidnapping, you know, I'm like a fucking concubine. He keeps me locked up in this castle like bloody Rapunzel.

• 36:37Sam Fragoso?

  When you go about pivoting out of that moment, and you're in this decade of big budget American comedies, I guess I'm curious, like, big picture, what did you want to do in those films, like Neighbors?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, to start with, I think I was very lucky in that role in Get Him to the Greek was outrageous and wildly, like, you know, self-absorbed pop star who was on a bend to sort of self-destruct and as the sort of female counterpart to Russell Brown, but a great satire, you know, and a take on that type of character that you see in the media. But then I think working on Bridesmaids and with Paul Feig, he's such a lover of women and such a lover of actresses. And I was so lucky to have that exposure early on in broad comedy, where it is obviously historically written and directed and devised by men.

• 37:23Sam Fragoso?

  Most of the women basically are given nothing to do.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm not saying anything new here. Look at the history of Saturday Night, you know, wherever, like, you know, constant conversation around that and women in comedy. And I don't want to speak to it too much because I'm not that educated about it compared to like someone like Amy Poehler, who's sitting in this seat, or Tina Fey, or the greats like that.

• 37:38Sam Fragoso?

  But your work did subvert that conception.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  It did, and that was really early on because I was so lucky that I had Paul Feig as a sort of mentor at that point. And then with Neighbors, we were really trying, there's so many tropes of the wife in these comedies and that they're the nag and mom. It was a very conscious decision and intention to create a couple that were sort of as silly as one another and as dysfunctional as one another. And one of them wasn't trying to drag the other one down. And it was like very much a comic duo, which we then obviously went on to like explore further with Platonic and stuff, Seth and I, yeah.

• 38:08Sam Fragoso?

  I guess to go back to like thinking about the kid who left Australia, moved to America, very quickly became a pretty successful dramatic actress, and then pivoted into comedies in this great big way. Were you happy to do something that was funny? Were you relieved to show something else?

• 38:26Speaker 01

  I really was. I was very happy to. It was liberating. And like any actor, you know, you may have success in one role and then immediately get 12 scripts playing like the same part in different versions. And you quickly learn, oh, if I can have some agency over what I'm choosing next or what I go for next, where will I go? But it was totally liberating. It was totally liberating after. You know, quickly realizing you can get typecast and how to, how to find people who want you to pivot, who can be your, you know, who can facilitate that.

• 38:56Sam Fragoso?

  I want to play a scene from Bridesmaids. This is you and Kristen Wiig doing a wedding toast.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  Lilian, you're my best friend.

• 39:06Speaker 04

  And I'm so proud of you.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  And Doug Lee, I'm sorry, inside joke.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  You better not keep my Lil on a leash because I still need my drunken Saturday nights at Rockin' Sushi, okay?

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Everybody raise your glasses to the couple of the decade, Doug and Lilian.

• 39:37Speaker 04

  Have a great night. Dessert wine is out. Dessert wine, yummy.

• 39:42Sam Fragoso?

  Coming back, you know, it's funny watching that and really any of these films. Neighbors, the sequel, Platonic to some degree.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  Spy is a great.

• 39:51Sam Fragoso?

  Spy, yes, yes, yes. But you really perfected this like very confident woman with a breezy exterior that completely obfuscates this interiority that's coming undone. I wonder if you see the link between those and what you end up doing in this new film of yours.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, to thread a needle.

• 40:12Sam Fragoso?

  Because in Legs, you just get to play the woman who's coming undone.

• 40:19Sam Fragoso?

  Like, you're not really putting on any airs.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  She's given up.

• 40:24Sam Fragoso?

  It seems like this is the film that if they had like a second camera crew at the end of shooting one of these movies and you were like, hey, we're gonna stay all night, we're gonna make another film, this is gonna be like the B-side of, this is the B-side of Neighbors.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  I think it's a radical take and I kind of love it. I suppose I'm in it, so I don't have the power of sort of being able to fully see.

• 40:46Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, let me rephrase it better.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:47Sam Fragoso?

  Like, you hadn't been offered something like this. And I'm sure there's a part of you that when. I'm ready to do this. Is that fair?

• 40:57Speaker 01

  That is fair. I think it's also fair that I was terrified. Like, I was like, I know I keep saying I didn't want to mess it up and that, all those sorts of things.

• 41:03Sam Fragoso?

  What were you terrified of?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Of messing it up. This is Mary Bronstein's personal story, something that happened to her. This is a, well, you know, an abstracted version of that. As an actor, you're waiting for the balls to get thrown. You know, you're waiting a lot and to have that opportunity with the bat, it is a big feeling. And yeah, I've had, gosh, a myriad of roles, like small roles in big films, big roles in small, you know, the gamut of things. And this is, this was, I felt like such a, of course, an incredible opportunity.

• 41:34Sam Fragoso?

  Hmm. It's funny. One of the reasons she cast you, she said, is because audiences have a lot of affection for Rose Byrne. There's a lot of goodwill there. When you finally got to watch your performance in the film, what do you understand about the movie and story now that you didn't when you were making it? Like, now that you see it all put together?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  I think I just see it as this extraordinary creative expression that Mary Bronstein had to get out. She had to get it out. She had to tell this story. And it's not even a linear thing. It's a lot of it is very abstracted and Lynchian. And I see that. I see beyond me in it. And that's wild. That's like, that's not always the case. You can get hung up on this and that. And film itself is such a clear, wild, angry expression of a feeling that I feel. That's my takeaway.

• 42:21Sam Fragoso?

  This is a strong angry impression.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:23Sam Fragoso?

  And I mentioned earlier, I had strong feelings.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm curious.

• 42:26Sam Fragoso?

  Well, here's one. If you're in a relationship and you and your partner have been debating having kids, this is the film for you.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  I don't know about that.

• 42:36Sam Fragoso?

  It's a perfect date film for people in the early stages of a serious relationship. And I'll tell you why. Because like most things made by smart women, it is a test of sorts.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  I love that, Sam. I think that's wonderful. I think that is razor sharp.

• 42:51Sam Fragoso?

  It's a litmus test. It also sometimes feels like a dare ad for the dangers of procreating. Like, I've always wanted to have kids. I've never had more doubts about having kids.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 43:03Sam Fragoso?

  Than after watching this movie.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  But can I say, 99% hopefully of parents will never go through this. This is such a isolated, very specific situation that this family is in. So just for all those people out there who do want to start families.

• 43:18Sam Fragoso?

  But, but the heart of my dumb joke.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:20Sam Fragoso?

  You're a mother of two kids.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:22Sam Fragoso?

  This film really gets at it in a way that's like, oh, man, talk about feeling seen.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. I had a girlfriend who saw it recently, a mother of two children, and she said, this, I feel invisible every day. Cause mothers are both revered and ignored. It's like a study in contrast. It's the truth. It's both things are true.

• 43:41Sam Fragoso?

  Yeah. It's like the thing I said at the beginning about my friend. She's a full person, asked about the kid.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yes. And that is, that's the reality. And she just said, I feel so seen. I feel so invisible every day. And oh, my God. She was like screaming to me on the phone and I was dying. But she's not letting you off the hook. Mary Bronstein is not letting you off the hook. And she does it in very clever ways, very cinematically with the way she uses the camera and the sound design and, you know, it's very clever.

• 44:05Sam Fragoso?

  By the time the film ended, you said, quote, "I was physically and emotionally bruised."

• 44:11Sam Fragoso?

  One, is everything okay?

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. That's so wildly. It's so funny. Australians don't take themselves so seriously.

• 44:18Sam Fragoso?

  You don't.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  I just sound so serious in that. And it just makes me so uncomfortable because I am like.

• 44:24Sam Fragoso?

  I'm sorry.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  You know what it is? It's your adrenaline is so high. It's as simple as that. There's a crash. There's just a crash up. And it can come mid shoot. It can come at the end. It can go. And it just at the end, I just did crash because it was physically, obviously a lot. And then subconsciously, of course, draining. But it's also so fun. Like, all those things can also be fun. So I want to stress that.

• 44:45Sam Fragoso?

  On the other side of the crash, now that we're here.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:49Sam Fragoso?

  What do you want to do? Like, what kind of work do you want to make? Because I know for a long, long time, your favorite filmmaker was the late David Lynch.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 44:58Sam Fragoso?

  This is the kind of performance, I think, that offers a kind of pivot moment. The same way you got to pivot after damages into comedy. Now this.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 45:07Sam Fragoso?

  Into this film, like, what do you want? And this doesn't, you can be as serious or not serious as you like.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  I am, okay, I know what I'm doing. I'm doing a play and I'm really thrilled about it. I haven't been on stage for five years. I revere theatre actors. I've done plays, but I've definitely.

• 45:24Sam Fragoso?

  Your partner does a lot of plays.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  You know, Bobby's Church is the theatre, you know, that's his first love and we have date nights at the theatre, like we're a couple of geeks. So I'm doing a Noel Coward comedy and I'm, I'm really excited. I'm very nervous. It's, there's no one with that razor sharp, extraordinary writing and wit. And it's, when you read it as an actor, it's like reading Chekhov and it's a weird comparison, but it, it feels very easy. And then when you've actually tried to get it on its feet, you go, oh my gosh, this is, this is wildly a tight, this is a tight rope. And that to me is very exciting.

• 46:05Sam Fragoso?

  After one last break, the end of my conversation with Rose Byrne.

• 46:23Sam Fragoso?

  I think a lot of us are going to spend the next few weeks looking for gifts online. And while I like finding something thoughtful for the people in my life, the process can get a little ridiculous. You've got a dozen tabs open, you're comparing prices and you're trying to remember which store had that one thing you saw that has a deal and you flagged it and you saved it and now you can't find it. Anyway, that's what I like about Shop. Shop brings all kinds of stores together in one place. So you can search for what you're looking for across different brands while discovering new ones along the way. Plus tracking all your orders without jumping in between websites. And just in time for the holidays, they're celebrating the all new shop.com with a pretty extraordinary

• 47:03Sam Fragoso?

  giveaway. 1,000 shoppers will win $1,000 in shop cash. That's $1 million in total, which you can put towards gifts for other people or maybe something you've had an eye on for yourself. And you don't have to buy anything to enter the giveaway. Enter to win the $1 million shop cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win and that's shop.com, shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 47:40Sam Fragoso?

  I think the best clothes you own are probably the ones you spend the least amount of time thinking about. They're just there when you need them. The sweater that goes with everything, the perfect pair of pants or the tee you always reach for first. That's what I've always liked about Quince. They focus on everyday staples made with premium materials like organic cotton, merino wool, and 100% Mongolian cashmere. Their cashmere sweaters start at just $60 and everything is designed to be versatile enough to work with what you already own. And now that the temperatures are starting to drop, they also have premium down jackets and classic wool outerwear. Easy layers that can carry you through the fall and into winter. I've had a few of their merino wool all-season

• 48:22Sam Fragoso?

  tees for just over a year now, and they've really become my go-to in my wardrobe. The quality was the thing that surprised me when I first tried them out. They're comfortable, easy to layer, and after a year of wearing them regularly, they've held up remarkably well. I use them all the time and would absolutely recommend them. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, which allows them to price everything 50 to 80% less than similar brands. So you're paying for the quality of the materials rather than a big brand markup. It's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to hotel-quality bedding and bath, kitchen essentials, and thoughtfully designed furniture. Well-made pieces for everyday living. Find your next

• 49:02Sam Fragoso?

  fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com and get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Talk Easy. It's really the best way to support the show. Enjoy.

• 49:35Sam Fragoso?

  My last question.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:37Sam Fragoso?

  To bring it full circle, do you remember that day you were 16 years old?

• 49:42Sam Fragoso?

  And you went to go see an Arthur Miller play?

• 49:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. Clearly, I remember what I was wearing.

• 49:46Sam Fragoso?

  Could you tell us the story of that?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  I went to see A View From A Bridge with one of my best friends, Nadia Townsend, who's now my dramatog. Now we work together in that capacity, and she's brilliant. And we went to see A View From A Bridge, and I was a student. I was 16. And it was a production that was really very famous in Australia, starring the late Marshall Napier. He was extraordinary, the wonderful Essie Davies. And it was just thrilling, thrilling in a core memory sense of the great, great tragedy of it, the drama of it, the humor in it. Yeah, it was one of those core kind of moments.

• 50:21Sam Fragoso?

  And any part of that 16-year-old think, okay, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna be here.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  No, of having dreams of that.

• 50:28Sam Fragoso?

  Now here in New York.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was that feeling too, you know, when you see something, or you read a book, or you see something, and you have to tell everybody. Like, that thing of like, you gotta shout it from the rooftop, because you cannot believe what you've just experienced. That was that feeling of chasing that kind of feeling, I guess, is some kind of subconscious thing I'm doing.

• 50:47Sam Fragoso?

  Well, I'm glad you've chased it, and I have to say, I felt the same thing watching this new film of yours.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 50:55Sam Fragoso?

  It's hard to make a good movie.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  It's so hard.

• 50:57Sam Fragoso?

  And I think this one is a very special one.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Thank you, Sam.

• 51:00Sam Fragoso?

  And to close, I know your father is a betting man. He used to be Race Traxx. Now, I think he uses a site called Betfair.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Betfair.

• 51:09Sam Fragoso?

  I don't know if they have odds for best actress nominations, but if they do, I think you should make the bet.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  Awesome. You're lovely. And dad loves to crunch the numbers.

• 51:22Sam Fragoso?

  I'm just trying to have your father make some extra money.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 51:26Sam Fragoso?

  I hope you bet on yourself, too.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Always, constantly.

• 51:31Sam Fragoso?

  Okay, good. Rose Byrne, thank you for the time.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 52:06Sam Fragoso?

  And that's our show. Special thanks to speak to the teams at Narrative and A24. I also want to thank Ioni Sky and Ben Lee and of course, our guest, Rose Byrne. You can watch If I Had Legs I'd Kick You on HBO Max. For more episodes, I'd recommend Ryan Coogler, Seth Brogan, and Viola Davis. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at Talk Easy Pod. If you want to purchase one of our mugs, they come in cream or navy. You can do so at TalkEasyPod.com/shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our executive producer is Janix Bravo. Today's talk was edited by Lindsay Ellis, Matt Sasaki, and Corey Etad.

• 52:50Sam Fragoso?

  It was mixed by Andrew Vastola. It was recorded out of PodStream in New York City. Our music is by Dylan Peck. Our illustrations, Kresha Shanoi. Photographs today come from Sarah Schneider with research assistance from Kiki Giorgio. Production assistance by Neil Mulaney. This episode was made in partnership with Lebanon Media and Higher Ground. I'm Sam Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next Sunday. Until then, stay safe and so long.

• 53:37Sam Fragoso?

  Mubi is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Everything at Mubi is handpicked with an emphasis on visionary filmmakers and movies worth discovering. One new movie is called Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma from writer-director Jane Seanbrun, who made the film I Saw the TV Glow. The film stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson. It follows a young director tasked with resurrecting Camp Miasma, a once beloved slasher franchise that after years of sequels has fallen out of favor. Looking for inspiration, she visits the reclusive actress who starred in the original film. What begins at attempt to revive the franchise soon pulls the two women into a blood-soaked world of desire, fear, and delirium.

• 54:21Sam Fragoso?

  It's a world-expanding, genre-bending movie for one of the most distinctive filmmakers working today. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now streaming exclusively on MUBI. You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com/talkeasy. That's MUBI, M-U-B-I dot com slash talkeasy for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 54:44Speaker 06

  History gets written, then rewritten, sometimes by scholars correcting the record, sometimes by committees deciding what a generation of kids will and won't learn. The version that makes it into the textbook isn't always the only story. It's the one that won out. That's the kind of thing Ground News was built for. It shows you how outlets across the spectrum tell the same story, side by side, so you can spot the shading for yourself. Ground News gives each outlet a factuality rating, so you know how much weight to give the source, and shows you who owns it, so you know what's behind it. The Nobel Peace Center called it "an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers,

• 55:28Speaker 06

  and expand your worldview." So go to groundnews.com/rz. That's G-R-O-U-N-D-N-E-W-S dot com slash R-Z for 40% off unlimited access vantage plan. Get it yourself or gift it to someone who'd rather know than not. Use my link, groundnews.com/rz, so you get the discount and they know I sent you. If you're a fan of learning all sides of history, then Ground News is for you. One more time, groundnews.com/rz.