Rose Byrne

Born in a suburb of Sydney called Balmain, New South Wales to a close-knit family, Byrne joined the Australian Theatre for Young People when she was eight years old. After being rejected from many major film schools, she went to Sydney University to study an arts degree, before studying acting at the Atlantic Theatre Company (which was developed by David Mamet and William H Macy). She made her screen debut in the movie Dallas Doll (1994). She then started working in Australian TV, making a name for herself especially in the soap opera Echo Point (Network Ten, 1995). She also had a recurring role in the final year of Heartbreak High (1999). In 2000, she earned her first lead role in the dramady The Goddess of 1967, where she won an award for Best Actress at the 2000 Venice Film Festival for playing a blind girl taking a road trip with a Japanese businessman. After some more theatre work, including a run of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters at the Sydney Theatre company, she was introduced to the non-Australian world with a small part in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002). After some more solid work in movies like The Night We Called It a Day and The Rage in Placid Lake (both 2003), she had a breakthrough appearing in Wolfgang Peterson’s Trojan War Epic, Troy (2004).

She proved herself in the indie films Wicker Park (2004) and Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette (2006), as well as the TV miniseries Cassanova (2005). Duel horror movies in 2007, Alex Garland and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine and 28 Weeks Later (a sequel to Garland and Boyle’s 28 Days Later), caught the eye of American TV producers. Soon, she was cast in the career defining role Ellen Parsons in Damages (2007-2012) with Glenn Close. Byrne was nominated for 2 Emmys and two Golden Globes for the role. Durring the show's run, she starred in Knowing (2009) and Insidious (2010) as the love interests of tortured men, before unexpectedly finding a niche in comedy playing the hyper-competitive Helen, fighting with Kristin Wiig for the position of Maid of Honor in the box office smash Bridesmaids (2011) (she had branched out into comedy before this, notably in 2010's Get Him to the Greek, but did not receive the same amount of attention). She and the rest of the cast of Bridesmaids received a SAG Award nomination for Best Ensemble. A critically panned but commercially successful remake of the 1982 classic, Annie, was released in December 2014 and featured Byrne playing the role of Grace Farrell, the titular character's mother figure She split her time for a few years between comedies like The Internship and I Give It a Year (both 2013), and non comedic movies like X-Men: First Class (2011), The Turning (2013), and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). However, the 2014 smash hit Neighbors seemed to convince her to stay with comedy for a while, only returning to the X-Men (for 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse) and Insidious (for 2018’s Insidious: The Last Key) franchises outside of comedy for a few years. She put in great work in comedies like Spy (2015), Juliet, Naked (2018), Jexi (2019), and Like A Boss (2020). In 2019, she branched out with Netflix’s sci-fi thriller I Am Mother. In 2020, she starred in the FX bio-drama series Mrs. America as Gloria Steinem, who unsuccessfully fought against Cate Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafly to pass the ERA. She has been in the Apple+ series Physical since 2021 and has a second series on the streaming service called Platonic with Seth Rogen. She had a cameo in Spirited (2022) with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. She was recently in Insidious: The Red Door (2023) directed by costar Patrick Wilson. Byrne has been in a relationship with American actor Bobby Cannavale since 2012. The couple have two sons, born in February 2016 and November 2017.