Rose Byrne

“Jane Campion’s The Piano is a masterpiece. Holly Hunter’s Performance is so extraordinary. And the location of this place is visionary. I just still remember first seeing this movie. Anna Paquin dancing on the beach. The landscape, the… the cinematography is just extraordinary. So this is going into my collection.”

“Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. This movie is so punk. It’s of a time, it’s of the ’90s, when I was a teenager. This explosion of Ewan McGregor and how fantastic that Performance is, how dark it is, how… the gallows humor, the Scottish humor in this. It’s amazing. These images. Fantastic. I still remember, yeah… The sequence when he defecates in the bed is so amazing. It’s so funny. And it’s a high-wire act, this movie.”

“Okay, where do I find Mulholland Dr.? Mulholland Dr. The sound design in this film is so singular and so eerie. Obviously he was a master of sound. And this film, I guess, it speaks to me in so many ways, obviously the mystery of Hollywood, coming there as an actress, the great Naomi Watts and, like, her legacy of this story of her struggling as an actress and her waiting to break through, and then the reflection of that in this film, and this was her breakout role and how… her innocence in t...”

“Paris, Texas. One of my Sisters loved this film. I saw this film very, very young. And I have many core memories of watching this movie, particularly the extraordinary soundtrack from Ry Cooder. This is so iconic. I used to listen to that. I got, like, the CD of it and listened to it in my bedroom. It’s so romantic and evocative, and the time it takes to unfold, the space of the movie, the space of the incredible locations, Nastassja Kinski, the incredible monologue at the end...”

“Secrets & Lies, Mike Leigh, who transformed the kitchen-sink drama into the most operatic, intense, crushing experience, watching cinema through Performance. The performances of these actresses in this movie are ingrained into my… myself. The great Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who I recently saw in Hard Truths, who was just so extraordinary. And, of course, Brenda Blethyn. But the reveals of this movie, the… It’s operating on so many different levels, about class and race and… and place.”

“This Paul Mazursky film, An Unmarried Woman, starring Jill Clayburgh, who I got to work with on Bridesmaids toward the end of her career, and it was very moving, and she had this very interesting career in the theater and in film. But this film has grown to have such a seminal space, I think. And her Performance is really outrageous for that time. And I recently revisited it and just, yeah, I was so immersed in the world of Manhattan, and it’s a really… I think it’s quite iconic.”