Hi, everyone, and thank you for tuning in to the 605th episode of the Hollywood Reporter's

Awards Chatter podcast.

I'm the host, Scott Feinberg, and my guest today is an Australian actress who was recently

described by Vanity Fair as one of the most versatile and consistently

watchable stars in the game. She has had a whole host of different lives as an actress. For her

work opposite Glenn Close on the TV drama series damages, which aired between 2007 and 2012,

she received two Emmy and two Golden Globe Award nominations. Then there are the comedic

turns. For the 2011 film Bridesmaid, she shared in a Best Ensemble Saga Award nomination,

and for the 2014 film Neighbors, she received a Critics Choice Award nomination.

And for acclaimed performances in two very different sorts of films released 25 years apart,

2000s The Goddess of 1967 and 2025's If I Had Legs I Kick You,

she was awarded the best actress prizes of the Venice and Berlin Film Festivals, respectively.

If I Had Legs I Kick You, a semi-autobiographical, very dark comedy that was written and directed by Mary Bronstine, began rolling out in theaters last Friday.

Byrne appears in virtually every scene, usually in tight close-up, as Linda, a woman whose life is literally and figuratively crashing down all around her.

She is a therapist, who has a client behaving very oddly, a wife whose husband has gone out of

town at a most inopportune time, and a mother who is forced to relocate with her sickly

daughter to a motel run by some very colorful characters.

After a while, it's all just a bit too much for Linda, if not for the actress who

so skillfully plays her. Rose Byrne. Over the course of a conversation at the LA offices of the

Hollywood Reporter, the 46-year-old reflected on coming to America and quickly landing in a Star

Wars film and opposite Brad Pitt in Troy, what she learned from her years working alongside

Glenn Close, how she and the industry discovered her comedic side, the unique challenges and

...