the rose byrne forum
|
| Author | Message / Information |
| balmain3001 Quote | Reply | | New ROSE articles posted on: 5/19/2004 11:38:02 PM The Cairns Post/The Cairns Sun Wednesday May 19, 2004 Kiss from a Rose She gets to kiss Brad Pitt in the new movie epic Troy but Rose Byrne takes it all in her stride. She tells Sarah Wilson how she learnt about fame the hard way. There's something distinctly fascinating about Rose Byrne. Much has been made of the 24-year-old actor being the next Aussie to cut it on the international screen. Australians like to do that a lot. But Byrne has spent the past couple of years working back-to-back on six films, three of them international productions, and tirelessly fending off such assertions. "They say that about a lot of people," she laughs. "I do tend to downplay success and I do understand why people want to make a fuss. But in America, there are lots of young actresses, just as good-looking and just as talented. I'm the one who's over there and I know how it is." She explains that she actually only appears in Troy for a total of 10 scenes. "It's a very small role. Yep, 10 scenes is all," she says with the faintest whiff of exasperation. But she does admit that the film will doubtlessly be the standout blockbuster of the year. And her role as Briseis, the stunning cousin of Hector (Bana) who's captured and offered to Achilles (Pitt) as a prize, is pivotal to the entire plot. She's also one of only three female characters in the film and Byrne pretty much does all her scenes alongside Pitt. "So I guess it's a part I'll always remember," she laughs. "The film is massive. For me it was a bit like going from high school to university. It was overwhelming and I felt like the smallest person." She spent four months on set with Pitt in Mexico and is one of the few women on the planet who's kissed him. "It was pretty mild. The rating is G," she says. "Of course, when I first met him, it was surreal because I felt like I knew him. Fame is weird because you develop a relationship with people you don't know. I thought I knew exactly who Brad Pitt was, about his relationships, his life. "You already know them, but they don't know you, so it's such an imbalance. You've got to slowly let go of all that stuff and see them as a normal person. I just had to do it [the kiss] and not think about things, otherwise the scene wouldn't have made sense." "By the same token, there were times when I would turn around and it was like, 'This is weird'." "I didn't know what he was like when he was a boy, so I don't know how fame has changed him. But he was down to earth and has a good sense of humour about it more than anything. He's quite shy and he kept to himself." She changes tact and pace. "He was very good with me. He treated me as an equal, and was supportive of my choices, like what I'd do with my lines. He was really respectful of me as an actor." |
|
balmain3001
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/19/2004 11:38:48 PM The Advertiser May 19, 2004 Looks that brought Achilles to heel AND we remember when she was just a sweet, naive country chick in Two Hands. Aussie girl made good Rose Byrne is relishing her role as a sexy Hollywood bombshell, especially the love scenes with hunk Brad Pitt . Stunning in sandals for the epic Troy, Byrne is going from strength to strength in her acting career - and from one dishy leading man to the next, graduating from starring opposite Heath Ledger to Pitt. The brunette has just done a risque shoot with The Insider magazine, to hit the streets on June 16. With the help of leading Australian stylist Trevor Stones, she is breathtaking in a red Scanlon and Theodore dress and gold Louis Vuitton shoes. The exclusive series was shot by renowned Australian photographer Roger Deckker. Judging by the photos, it won't be long before the fellas in Hollywood start saying that her co-stars are the lucky ones. |
|
balmain3001
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/19/2004 11:40:54 PM Sun Herald (Sydney) May 16, 2004 IT'S official. The actor formerly known as Rose Byrne is now known simply as "the luckiest girl in the world" because of her extensive scenes opposite Brad Pitt in Troy. Despite the sexy scenes being filmed in Malta, Byrne ducked home to Sydney for a photo shoot inside bohemian Kings Cross nightspot Baron's , which is generally open until the crack of dawn for all manner of revellers. The 24-year-old posed inside Baron's for Insider magazine, a new pop culture title being released in June by the makers of IF magazine. The shots, taken by Australian photographer Roger Deckker , show Byrne draped across various couches inside the pub. (And despite her burgeoning status as a red hot star in Hollywood, Byrne didn't mind the beer stains.) Following her impressive role in Troy, Byrne's next US flick is Wicker Park opposite Josh Hartnett . The film centres on the story of a man obsessed by his long lost love, and is due out later this year. In the meantime, we can celebrate Byrne's new-found status as a deadset legend for getting up and close and personal with Brad Pitt on screen, then pretending it wasn't a big deal. |
|
balmain3001
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/19/2004 11:42:15 PM Sunday Age May 16, 2004 'I've Had Worse' As one of the female leads in the ancient-era blockbuster Troy, Rose Byrne had the unsavoury task of snogging Brad Pitt. All things considered, it went quite well, she tells Melinda Houston. Rose Byrne reckons she's one lucky girl. With a filmography distinguished by quality rather than budget (except for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, where perhaps the reverse is true), landing a key role in a Hollywood blockbuster seemed a stroke of insane good fortune. "Miracle," she says, is not too strong a word. But that's exactly what happened, and now the world will get to see our Rose play Briseis in Wolfgang Petersen's humungous epic Troy, alongside such luminaries as Julie Christie, Peter O'Toole, Orlando Bloom, and our Eric (Bana, that is). Oh, and she also gets to snog Brad Pitt. And now, to cap it all off, the sparky 24-year-old is on a three-week international publicity junket. "Such a perk!" she laughs. "I'm not really sure why I'm here - maybe Orlando Bloom couldn't make it. I think I'm a bit of a ring-in, but I'm not complaining." Speaking from sunny LA, where she's squeezing a few auditions in between endless interviews, Byrne - whose more notable credits include Two Hands, The Goddess Of 1967 (for which she won the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival) and the delightful I Capture the Castle - is still reeling from her Troy experiences. The film, based loosely on Homer's The Illiad, retells the classic tale of the most beautiful woman in the universe, Helen, her husband King Menelaus, her lover Paris, the Prince of Troy, and their arch-enemies Agamemnon and the god-warrior Achilles. (There's also that bit about the wooden horse.) It is a perfectly enormous production, with (literally) a cast of thousands, massive sets on three continents, and some pretty massive egos too. (Director-producer Wolfgang Petersen clearly relishes really big films: his credits include Das Boot, Air Force One, and The Perfect Storm.) "The film was huge, huge," Byrne says. "It kind of harks back to Cleopatra, Ben Hur, it's quite old-school in that sense. Peter O'Toole actually said that it's like one of the old studio pictures. There are all these extras wandering around and they all look so authentic, any one of them could be one of the stars. The scale of it was just staggering." While no one's pretending the film is an "authentic" representation of The Illiad ("We took a few liberties," admits Byrne, who read the epic poem during filming), a lot of effort went into making it authentic according to its own lights. Brad Pitt trained for six months to perfect his fighting style. Poor old Eric Bana had to learn to ride a horse, then learn to ride a horse bareback, then learn to ride a horse bareback while a gazillion extras roared and screamed and rode their horses towards him and slashed at him with their fake swords. British military experts were recruited to train thousands of extras to look like a well-oiled military machine, and casting directors raided a sports academy in Bulgaria in search of suitably disciplined and muscular "warriors". "The boys were all on bizarre diets, they were all working out," Byrne says. "They really worked hard. I, on the other hand, didn't need any training. The other two females were told they had to gain a bit of weight, but they told me I was fine as I was." She adds drily: "I took that in my stride." In some of Byrne's scenes there'd be as many as 2000 extras. "You turn up for a night shoot and you feel like you're at a rave party," Byrne laughs. "Thousands of people standing around talking, eating, drinking, all these lights. You walk out into that and go, 'What the f---?' It's a miracle a film like this gets made, and even more of a miracle I'm in it." It is, indeed, quite a step for a cheery, diffident Sydney girl who didn't even make the cut at NIDA. Although she stresses that she's "only in a dozen scenes", her role is a pivotal one. Briseis is a temple virgin - the niece of the Trojan King Priam (Peter O'Toole) and cousin to Prince Hector (Eric Bana) - who is captured by the Greeks and given to Brad Pitt's Achilles as a sex toy. He falls for her (at least a bit), falls out with his boss Agamemnon (Brian Cox), and massive bloodshed between the Greeks and Trojans ensues. It's quite a load to carry, really. "I was definitely overwhelmed when I first went on set," Byrne says. "The first scene I did was the last scene, so I was starting at the end, which was a bit weird. I was nervous, but all my scenes are pretty high drama, so I tried to use that nervousness in the character. She's pretty stressed out." She says that once you learn the ropes it's more like business as usual. But the high-powered cast did create a special atmosphere. "It was different, it was more intimidating having such famous people involved. Everyone's aware that Brad's on set, everyone tries to give him a bit of space. Not that he's a diva at all, he doesn't ask for it, it's just a consequence of him being so famous. So there is a different vibe, a different atmosphere." And speaking of Brad... "What can I say?" (At least she has the decency to laugh, rather than groan, at the inevitable question.) "He's nice! Very down to earth, considering how famous he is. He's cheeky, he laughs a lot. He likes Radiohead. He's very, very good looking, he's a beautiful man. And he was very nice to me. We had a lot of very heavy scenes together, and he made me feel very comfortable." By heavy she means emotionally intense, not rude. "The love scenes were actually pretty tame. I've had worse." So, no burgeoning off-screen romance there. And, typically, the friends she did make on set were rather lower down the pecking order. She became great mates with Nick Saunders, Orlando Bloom's assistant. And she also hit if off with Diane Kruger, the German actor who plays Helen, and who stars again with Byrne in the soon-to-be-released Paul McGuigan film Wicker Park. She did have one compatriot there, of course - Eric Bana, someone else who knows a thing or two about rocketing to international stardom. "Eric had his family there," Byrne says. "We only had one scene together, and I did see him around but two young kids kept him pretty busy." Their interaction on set was minimal, but Byrne gives him a lot of (perhaps undue) credit for her being there at all. "He really helped me get the part," she says. "I ran into him beforehand and he said he'd mention me to Wolfgang. And I'm sure that helped. I'm sure an awful lot of pretty girls sent their tapes in. It's always good to have an edge." Much has been made of the physical challenges of making Troy, including the fact that the massive multimillion-dollar set in Mexico was all but destroyed by a cyclone. "Oh yeah, it was tough," Byrne says. "Sitting by the pool. Very tough." She missed the hurricane, she says, but did get a tropical storm. "I was a bit disappointed about that. Would have been nice to see a bit of that natural drama. But it wasn't a tough environment. The places we were in - Malta and Mexico - were very touristy, very resorty, although not the kind of place I'd take a holiday. It was spring break, so in Mexico especially there were a lot of people walking around without many clothes on, really drunk. And Malta, there are really pretty spots but the whole place has been raped and pillaged so many times it's showing a bit of wear and tear." She admits, though, that she had it pretty easy compared with some of the others involved. "It was much tougher on the crew. In Mexico it was 100 degrees (fahrenheit) day after day, and we were filming on the beach. So when you're on the sand for 15 hours... everyone starts getting tired, everyone gets sunburnt, people get a bit ratty. It was easier for the girls because we wore these nice flowing frocks, but the boys were in lots of leather, layers of things, armour and sandals. Much tougher on them." In the end, the hardest bit was not the working, but the not-working. Over the four-and-a-half months she was officially employed, only a fraction was spent actually filming. "It's very sporadic and random. It's really exhilarating when you are working, but in between times there's boredom, depression. I don't handle the down times well. That's something I have to work on. It's so weird to be complaining when just being in the film was such a huge buzz, but I do get really bored and restless. So I watched a lot of MTV, I drank a lot of margaritas. And tried not to go too crazy." Now Byrne is looking forward to working again. "It's been, you know, six months, except for a little play I did in Sydney in January. So I'm really looking forward to getting creative again." And she's looking forward to getting some perspective on what has been a true milestone in her short life. "When I think of it now it's just this huge gaping time in my life," she says. "A really epic period. And it's still too much part of my life to even know how I feel about it. I'll be interested to see what the enduring memories are." Maybe snogging Brad Pitt will figure in there somewhere. |
|
balmain3001
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/19/2004 11:44:28 PM The Australian May 5, 2004 Acting with Brad Pitt is only one reason Rose Byrne is excited, writes Sophie Tedmanson IMAGINE the classical city of Troy as the setting of a giant rave party, and you are one step closer to getting inside the head of Rose Byrne. It may sound like a strange description, but it seems to make sense when you talk to the 24-year-old Australian actor who plays the slave girl Briseis in Troy, Wolfgang Petersen's cinematic adaptation of Homer's The Iliad. "It was just like a rave," she giggles, of the four-month shoot last year in Malta, London and Mexico. "There were literally thousands of people standing around not knowing what to do, there were horses and buildings everywhere, no one knew what was going on." One minute Byrne is quite a dippy, sweet young woman who complains about missing the close group of girlfriends she has in her home town of Sydney; the next, she's expressing her heartfelt fear of the risk to Australian culture in the recent highly politicised free trade agreement with the US. Byrne is talking by telephone from Los Angeles, but you can just picture her curled up on a sofa with her legs tucked beneath her petite frame, twirling her hair and occasionally rolling her eyes -- especially when Brad Pitt's name is mentioned ... but more on that later. She is very upbeat: everything is "amazing" and "wonderful" and she has to "keep pinching myself" about having her foot in the door in Hollywood after 10 years in the Australian film industry. Byrne first came to public and critical attention in Gregor Jordan's Kings Cross crime caper Two Hands, opposite Heath Ledger and Bryan Brown, in 1999. Since then, she has starred in a unique collection of local films including the quirky The Goddess of 1967, which earned her a best actress award at the Venice film festival; The Night We Called It a Day; and The Rage in Placid Lake, for which she received an AFI best actress nomination last year. Seven weeks ago, after spending most of 2003 filming overseas, Byrne officially moved to LA -- to an apartment with "nice, clean white walls" -- to reap the expected benefit from being involved in Troy, her first serious role in a big budget US film. (If you blinked during Star Wars: Episode 2 you would have missed her as Amidala's loyal handmaiden Dorme). While Troy will not be released worldwide until May 14 -- due to time differences it will be out the day before in Australia -- Byrne has already been noticed. Vanity Fair, for example, recently touted her as one of the new young stars to watch. Does such recognition make her career path easier? "No, it's never easy," she says. "I'm very much a small fish in a big pond over here and at the end of the day you've got to make sure you're doing good work. All that stuff doesn't mean very much when you are an actress. Of course, it's very flattering but you have got to take it with a grain of salt." She describes working on Troy as: "Pretty much like the experience my character goes through -- it was very epic and very surprising, very emotional." The $US150million ($207million) blockbuster has a star-studded cast, including Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Peter O'Toole as Priam and Diane Kruger as Helen, the queen whose beauty launched 1000 ships. Most of Byrne's scenes -- including those of the love variety -- are with Pitt, and so most of her interviews have begun with the question: What it is like to kiss the man who has been dubbed the world's sexiest many times over? "All that stuff is so funny," she says, with a here-we-go-again groan. "Everyone always wants to talk about him all the time ... Most of my scenes were with him, so I guess I was pretty spoilt. I had a good deal -- not only is he obviously gorgeous and all that, but he's a very hard worker as well." Her next film, to be released later this year, is Wicker Park, described as a "Hitchcockian thriller", about a young Chicago investment banker who becomes obsessed with a woman he sees in a cafe. The film, which was made in Canada before Troy and coincidentally co-stars Kruger (or "Kruges", as Byrne, her Australianness clearly not lost, affectionately dubbed her) was directed by Paul McGuigan. He has described Byrne as "incredible" and "the best actress he's ever worked with". Byrne sounds giddy with excitement about the future. "I still pinch myself that I got this role in a Wolfgang Petersen movie," she says. "To be among so many artists and be an equal ... it's an amazing opportunity and a very overwhelming thing." |
|
balmain3001
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/19/2004 11:45:48 PM Sunday Telegraph Magazine May 9, 2004 Byrne, baby, Byrne Rose locks lips with Brad Pitt - "Fame is weird because you develop a relationship with people you don't know" She gets to kiss Brad Pitt in the new movie epic Troy but laidback Aussie actress Rose Byrne takes it all in her stride, telling Sarah Wilson how she learnt her lesson about fame the hard way. There's something distinctly fascinating about Rose Byrne, although it's difficult to pinpoint at first. Sitting on a couch with her in a Sydney hotel room, you can't stop staring, following her every expressive twitch as it works its way around her doll-like face. She's make-up free, her dark, glossy hair tossed into a loose ponytail and she's wearing the just-thrown-together uniform of the nonchalantly beautiful. Worn jeans hang from her tiny frame, a grey woollen turtleneck with holes in the seams and honey-coloured vintage wedges (the kind, we agree, both our mum's wore when we were kids). She's definitely alluring, mostly for the lack of trying. But that's not quite it. No, the fascination is more in the strange combination of bewildered alertness and dreamy calmness that characterises her demeanour. Both her eyebrows are cocked high, yet her eyes are sleepy and possess a melancholia. On screen she's super bubbly and sweet, not so much the girl next door, but the wide-eyed cousin from the country. In the flesh, she's all that, but with a world-weary languidness. She sighs a lot. And her movements are unhurried. When she blinks or tucks the wisps of hair that fall from her ponytail behind her tiny ears, it's like she's caught in a slow-mo sequence. I'm mesmerised and a little lulled. You have a very chilled manner, I tell her. "I know, I know," she says. "Everyone thinks I'm stoned all the time." Which, she's not, she's quick to add. Doesn't touch the stuff. Much has been made of the 24-year-old Sydney-raised actor being the next Aussie to cut it on the international screen. Australians like to do that a lot. But Byrne has spent the past couple of years working back-to-back on six films, three of them international productions, and tirelessly fending off such assertions. "They say that about a lot of people," she laughs. Byrne laughs a lot, big raucous laughs that tumble out effortlessly, punctuating her slightly slurred speech. "I do tend to downplay success and I do understand why people want to make a fuss. But in America, there are lots of young actresses, just as good-looking and just as talented. I'm the one who's over there and I know how it is." As Byrne points out, she's only filled a handful of home-grown roles, including the acclaimed Two Hands in 1999 co-starring Heath Ledger. She was awarded a Best Actress gong at the 2000 Venice Film Festival for her part in The Goddess of 1967, a film that hardly registered with moviegoers here. And her first international flick was literally a blink-and-you'll-miss-it role in Star Wars Episode ll: Attack of the Clones. "I was in it for 30 seconds. I played [actress] Natalie Portman's handmaiden," she told British journalists last year. "I stand looking very demure and serious behind Natalie, out of focus." Her friends apparently did blink and missed the entire scene when they went to see it. Since then she's landed roles in the British production I Capture the Castle and upcoming Canadian film Wicker Park, starring alongside Josh Hartnett (who was in Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor). And, of course, a role in the epic Troy, the Wolfgang Petersen-directed extravaganza based on The Iliad, by ancient Greek poet Homer, and starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom, along with literally thousands of extras. She explains again, possibly for the umpteenth time, that she actually only appears in Troy for a total of 10 scenes. "It's a very small role. Yep, 10 scenes is all," she says with the faintest whiff of exasperation. But she does admit, with some prompting, that the film will doubtlessly be the standout blockbuster of the year. And her role as Briseis, the stunning cousin of Hector (Bana) who's captured and offered to Achilles (Pitt) as a prize, is pivotal to the entire plot (Achilles' devotion to her eventually turns the epic Trojan war). Byrne prepared for the role by reading The Trojan Women plays. "It was good to understand the extent these kind of women go to to fight for their men and their country and children and honour," she says. "Briseis is strong and has a sense of grounding and is the only person who stands up to Achilles." She's also one of only three female characters in the film and Byrne pretty much does all her scenes alongside Pitt. "So I guess it's a part I'll always remember," she laughs. "The film is massive. For me it was a bit like going from high school to university. It was overwhelming and I felt like the smallest person." Byrne, I realise halfway into the interview, is hesitant to offer an opinion, particularly about herself. But if you suggest an idea she'll often agree, enthusiastically "yeah, yeah-ing" and laughing heartily. Not nervously, but with relief. I suggest the role looms as a significant launching pad into Hollywood. She laughs in agreement. Since we spoke, rumours have emerged that off the back of her performance in Troy she's being considered for the Lois Lane role in Warner Bros' forthcoming Superman film. And in March she moved to Los Angeles (she's been toing-and-froing between Hollywood and Sydney since she was 18 although this is the first time she's set up a base there) to give herself the best chance of cracking Tinseltown. Her recent appearance in Vanity Fair magazine's prestigious 2004 Hollywood issue as a coming attraction to watch will help but she'll give it six months, she says. If it fails, she'll come home and finish her gender studies and English literature degree at University of Sydney. But back to Brad Pitt. Byrne actually did her audition for the role last year with Pitt. At the time she described him as "nice". She's since spent four months on set with him in Mexico and is one of the few women on the planet who's kissed him. A phenomenon that doesn't seem to rock Byrne so much. "It was pretty mild. The rating is pretty G," she says looking down at her hands. I don't think she's being falsely modest. As she explains, to do the job she had to shut herself off from his stellar presence. "Of course, when I first met him, it was surreal because I felt like I knew him. Fame is weird because you develop a relationship with people you don't know. I thought I knew exactly who Brad Pitt was, about his relationships, his life. You already know them, but they don't know you, so it's such an imbalance. You've got to slowly let go of all that stuff and see them as a normal person. I just had to do it [the kiss] and not think about things, otherwise the scene wouldn't have made sense." She lets out a half-cackle, half-sigh. "By the same token, there were times when I would turn around and it was like, 'This is weird.'" Byrne is quite vocal about fame and mentions what she regards as the meaningless and emptiness of it on several occasions. Shortly after breaking from her rather public relationship with director Gregor Jordon (Two Hands, Ned Kelly) - she was 18, he was 32 - she said she understood why couples in the industry made rules, like not being apart for more than two weeks. How is Pitt with his fame? "I didn't know what he was like when he was a boy, so I don't know how fame has changed him. But he was down to earth and has a good sense of humour about it more than anything. He's quite shy and he kept to himself." She changes tact and pace. "He was very good with me. He treated me as an equal, and was supportive of my choices, like what I'd do with my lines. He was really respectful of me as an actor." Byrne's reflections on fame no doubt stem from being bitten by it at quite a young age. She grew up comfortably in Sydney's Balmain, her dad was a market researcher and her mum an administrator at an indigenous primary school. "It was pretty magical and I was always surrounded by people." She was the "textbook youngest child, always trying to keep up with my cool sisters and my cool brother". One sister's a publisher in London, the other a painter in Melbourne. Her brother, George, is a Sydney-based musician and photographer. It's hard to imagine, but Byrne was a bit of a show-off. "Mum said when I was three or four, it was my birthday party and people came to the door with presents and I went [with theatrical gestures], 'Oh, are these for me?'" She cackles and plunges her head into her lap. She began acting lessons at eight, at Sydney's Australian Theatre for Young People, and while her siblings attended selective school Fort St High, she opted for one with a strong acting stream. At 13 she was cast in her first film, Dallas Doll, and at 15 she got a gig on the forgettable Aussie soap Echo Point. "I got pretty caught up in it," she says. "I used to get home and take on my character's voice and mannerisms. I loved it." She mentions that when she was about nine years old, she thought Neighbours was real. This new revelation then hardly comes as a surprise. "Fame kind of got me. I was on TV and getting my make-up done and was in TV Week and being asked what I thought of this and that." So what snapped her out of it? "Um, the show disappeared [it folded after six months] and everyone left and I had to go back to where I was before, back to high school. It was a shock." Her older sister Alice also wrote a university paper on the experience, "something like how teenagers are affected by pop culture, or something. It was pretty embarrassing." "It was a really good lesson," she admits, tucking her wedge-sandalled feet into the gap between the cushions. "It made me realise how fleeting fame is. I was young when I did that and since then have tried to be more aware of not getting too caught up again, because it's fairly dangerous." Which goes some of the way in explaining her reluctant burgeoning-star stance. People who've worked with her are much more confident of her future. Eric Bana approached her at the International Film Awards in 2003 and suggested she audition for the Troy role and then recommended her to the director. Paul Goldman, who directed her in The Night We Called It a Day, told industry magazine Inside Film, "We had a bet on set that we could get a bad [camera] angle on her, but we couldn't. Rose is complex and complicated, intelligent and a great mimic. She's a fine actress, she's certainly a better actress than she thinks she is." Gregor Jordon says there is "a stillness about her, a sort of otherworldly quality". And musician Ben Lee, her co-star in The Rage in Placid Lake, last year told Harper's Bazaar magazine, "She'll put herself in a situation that isn't secure. She's constantly taking risks." Yet toward the end of our chat she explains that she's a nervous, on-edge person and has suffered panic attacks for several years. "My mother is really calm and my dad is really manic, so I think I'm a combination," she says by way of explanation. "I get internal panic. I think I'm going crazy, like a 'losing grip on reality' feeling. It's my Achilles heel." She says that while working on Troy she had to do some night shoots and didn't get enough sleep, which contributed to "mild depression". She admits that while she's mostly extroverted, she can be shy. "I tried to make friends [on set], but it takes me a while to chill out and get to know people. I'm not the best socialiser when it comes to getting to know new people. I tended to sit in my room a lot, watching TV while everyone got into karaoke all night." She does provide some insight into the anomalies. "Getting older does give more perspective and I now think balance is the main thing. I'm still trying to find it. I try to do things in moderation. It's hard. When I was younger I'd go a bit more crazy. Now I've gone the other way, I'm more toned down." She's not there yet, with the balance stuff, but you get the sense she's on the cusp. And, of her return to LA the following week, she advises, "Everyone needs to realise the world is bigger than yourself". |
|
balmain3001
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/19/2004 11:46:34 PM Sydney Morning Herald May 7, 2004 Byrne For You Rose Byrne will do anything for Brad Pitt ... well, in Troy at least OK, Ms Byrne, it's time to ask the million-dollar question: is Brad Pitt as good looking in real life as he is on screen? "Yeah," she says. "He's quite beautiful." Damn it. Last year, Rose Byrne spent languid days and nights in Malta and Mexico cuddling up to the star of Fight Club and Snatch. The pair even have sex on screen. "Not quite. He had this modesty patch thing on. One of those ridiculous f---ing things. It's all psychological, anyway. Yeah, what was the question? "Oh yes, explain in detail. It was great. He's a good, great kisser." Was Jennifer Aniston there? "Yeah, she was under the bed. Holding a knife ... no, of course not." In Wolfgang Petersen's Troy - an epic based on Homer's The Iliad - Byrne plays Briseis, the cousin of Eric Bana's Hector, and Pitt plays the warrior Achilles. After Achilles razes the temple of Apollo, the protector of Troy, Briseis, one of the temple's acolytes, is left in his tent as a prize. Kind of like a Christmas hamper. In essence, then, Byrne plays Achilles's slave. Still, romance ensues, only to be thwarted when the Greek king Agamemnon (Brian Cox) abducts the young beauty, forcing Achilles to reconsider his allegiance to the Greeks in their war against the Trojans. "Briseis is definitely a pivotal character," Byrne says. "She nearly costs Agamemnon the war." War is a recurring word in any chat about The Iliad. Petersen's version features epic battles and equally epic gore. "The Iliad is definitely pretty bloodthirsty," Byrne says. "But all my stuff is pretty intimate - all my scenes were with Brad. That was a challenge emotionally because the stakes were always high, it was always a matter of life or death. As an actor, I could never really remove myself too far from the set because I never knew when I would have to go back on. I had to keep myself on simmer. "There were also a few physical challenges. I was getting beaten up and thrown around - but I like that. It takes you out of your head, so you don't think as much. That's when I find I do my best work." That's fine, but I'm still mulling over the news that Pitt's looks aren't merely the product of dense make-up and soft lighting. Eager to find a weakness in the armour, I mention Pitt's personality. Was he narcissistic? Selfish? "Working with him was great," Byrne says, irritatingly. "He just wanted to make sure our scenes worked, because it was important for the movie the relationship worked. "He commands a lot of attention and respect, but he's not egotistical. He's a private guy - I think you have to be if you're that famous. He's had an amazing career. He's one of those few very iconic, pop cult figures in film." Byrne hasn't yet ascended to Pitt's level of stardom, but she keeps threatening to. After a career-making role in Two Hands opposite Heath Ledger, Byrne won the best-actress prize at the Venice Film Festival for her role as a blind girl in the Aussie drama The Goddess of 1967. Last year, she had solid roles in three disappointing Aussie films: The Rage in Placid Lake, The Night We Called It a Day and Take Away. She also tested her proficiency for accents on foreign productions I Capture the Castle (English) and Wicker Park (American). Troy marked the culmination of the busiest period in Byrne's life. When it wrapped late last year, Byrne retreated to Bondi for a break. Then, two months ago she moved to LA. This relocation is surprising given that she said last year: "I haven't really had anything too bad in the way of experiences [in the film industry]. The worst was the time I spent in Los Angeles, which runs on bullshit and cliches. But then, it's really easy to diss the place, but the physical environment of LA is really beautiful. It's actually kinda fun, too, if you're working." Now living there, Byrne still finds LA intensely weird. "It's so huge," she says. "It's weird and sprawled out. Like Mars." Byrne plans to stay in LA until the end of the year, where she is perfectly placed to capitalise on the exposure Troy guarantees. "It was very epic making Troy," she says. "There were big highs and lows. It was a really big chunk of my life, being away for so long. "Making this film was literally like going to war and Wolfgang was the leader of the army. He'd just sit there very coolly in his Panama hat and linen suit and look like some sort of spy." Unlike Pitt, in his breastplate and sandals, who looked infuriatingly good. |
|
trbs
Quote | Reply | |
New ROSE articles
replied on: 5/20/2004 7:33:00 AM You can see one of the pics from the Insider magazine here: Adelaide Advertiser |
|
LinkBot
|
Gamers Wanted is looking for people to write game reviews and post news, |
|
|
| Tired of seeing ads? Click here to upgrade to Elite Membership! |
ChatArea.com Help & News Forums | Terms of Use | Contact ChatArea.com | Advertising
Powered By ChatArea.com - Get your free Society today! © Copyright 2003 Wewp!