Plus, she looks back on that “Bridesmaids” engagement party toast and shares where she thinks Helen is today.

Rose Byrne on her ‘scary’ close-up as a mother on the verge in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Plus, she looks back on that "Bridesmaids" engagement party toast and shares where she thinks Helen is today.

By Gerrad Hall

Gerrad Hall is an editorial director at **, overseeing movie, awards, and music coverage. He is also host of *The Awardist* podcast, and has cohosted EW's live Oscars, Emmys, SAG, and Grammys red carpet shows. He has appeared on *Good Morning America*, *The Talk*, *Access Hollywood*, *Extra!*, and other talk shows, delivering the latest news on pop culture and entertainment.

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November 6, 2025 8:30 a.m. ET

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Rose Byrne in 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'. Credit:

After three decades in the business, Rose Byrne was surely ready for her close-up...and she got it.

In her latest movie, Mary Bronstein's *If I Had Legs I'd Kick You*, the *Bridesmaids* and *Damages* alum plays Linda, a therapist and mother on the verge of a breakdown as she deals with a sudden disaster at home, a child with health issues, an absent husband, her inability to handle stress, her patients, and more.

Filmed with a nearly constantly moving camera, it's also often right up in her face, in extreme closeup, with nowhere for the actress to hide, an "absolutely scary" thought in hindsight.

"Mary really pushes the language between the audience and the camera. And I loved testing that and being part of that and figuring that out with her," the actress says on the latest episode of *The Awardist* podcast. "Knowing what Mary would need when the camera was, like, on my eyeball is different to what she would need when it was a super wide. And it was really challenging, obviously."

Rose Byrne in 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'.

Logan White/Courtesy of A24

And the challenge is paying off; she won the prestigious Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the Berlin Film Festival and earned a Gotham Awards lead performance nomination.

Getting to the heart of that performance wasn't easy, though.

"Very little information is given about Linda. Mary does not hold anybody's hand. You are thrown into this fire," she explains. "I was just obsessed with who she was before. Who is this woman before she had a child, before she was married? Because everyone responds differently to a crisis. It's very revealing. And so I wanted to reverse engineer a little bit so I could figure that out. 'Cause it's not me; her behavior is so specific to her. So that was an interesting process that me and Mary Bronstein went on in a big way for me to unlock the character."

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Byrne is operating at a high level of anxiety throughout nearly the entire movie — "I was always just running at a thousand percent," she says — but reliving it is something she put off as long as she could.

"I kept avoiding it," she says of watching the final cut of the movie prior to it debuting at Sundance earlier this year. "Mary would be like, 'You can come in and watch it.' And I'd be like, 'Cool.'...'Are you ready to come in?'...'Not yet.'...'How about now? Next week?' I was so avoiding it because it was so much."

Conan O'Brien and Rose Byrne in 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'.

Logan White/Courtesy of A24

But once she did, the wait was worth it. "I was rendered kind of speechless. It was a rollercoaster, is the best way to describe it," she recalls. "I didn't move. I was sort of just frozen in my seat and totally arrested by this language, this experience."

Ahead, Byrne reflects on roles in *Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones *and *Bridesmaids*, and below, listen to her full interview on *The Awardist* podcast below, where she also talks about working with A$AP Rocky (did she get to meet Rihanna?!) and Conan O'Brien, and she reveals whether Seth Rogen has asked her to be on *The Studio*.**

On her small role in Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones

"The scale of that storytelling, the reach that that has, the universe of that just continues to reach people, and to be like a small, little, tiny period at the end of that sentence — which is kind of what my character was — is so delightful, is part of something much bigger and much more meaningful to people. Walking onto the set was so fun. And there were so many Australians there. They were shooting in Sydney, people were just lining up to be background aliens with crazy costumes. It was wild, the scale of it.... And they were so lovely; Natalie [Portman] was so lovely, Hayden [Christensen], Ewan [McGregor].... And to put those fun costumes on with this big hood on was, like, I still remember how fun that was.... It just tickled me."

Natalie Portman and Rose Byrne in 'Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones'.

On that Bridesmaids engagement party toast

"Oh my gosh, that's so silly. That whole night. [*laughing*] It was a bit of both [scripted and improv]. You always start with the script, but then when you're on those sets, usually my experience is they're pitching a lot of ideas for you. Like, 'Try this, try that,' and then things come up in the scene, you know? Kristen [Wiig]'s a gifted, gifted [improviser], and she would just come up with ideas, and so I feel like it may have been a bit of an improv. I think [my character Helen] getting a second mic was in the script, but then the whole bit speaking in different languages and all this ridiculous stuff, [*laughing*] but I do remember everyone in the audience really laughing and thinking, oh, maybe this is funny."

Where is her Bridesmaids character, Helen, today?

"Oh my God. I think she's probably got three or four children. [*laughing*] And she's probably running a small events company. I would predict something like that. I would hope. And may or may not be separated and remarried. [*laughing*]"

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