“All the usual clichés”: The failed audition that left Rose Byrne bedridden for three days
After quietly chugging away in Hollywood for years, Rose Byrne finally got her big coming-out moment in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
Her turn as a therapist struggling to raise a sick child wasn’t just one of the best of last year, but one of the most complete and load-bearing central performances of the 21st century, and I’m happy for Jessie Buckley’s Oscar win, but in my mind, Byrne was robbed.
It hasn’t always been easy because the star has been passed over for some truly monumental roles, early in her career, like when she auditioned for the soap opera Home and Away, a launchpad for many of her fellow Australians. She would audition alongside her good friend Heath Ledger, though he was able to find success much more easily at that point in time.
One movie she came very close to starring in was Manderlay. An avant-garde piece from Denmark’s premier lunatic, Lars von Trier, the movie picks up the life of Grace Margaret Mulligan, the protagonist of his previous film, Dogville.
Nicole Kidman had walked away from the part, and Byrne was one of many young women attempting to replace her, but, as she explained to Irish Central, she was devastated when the director decided to cast Bryce Dallas Howard instead.
“I got really blue, got into bed for three days, ate bad food and watched TV,” she explained, “All the usual clichés. And that’s the funny thing about acting. It asks two totally opposing things of you, to be vulnerable and expose yourself, and yet to have a thick skin and be really tough because you’re constantly being rejected.”
Manderlay was released in 2005, a time when Byrne was still relatively unknown. She had starred in a number of Australian films by this point and even won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for her performance in The Goddess of 1967, but this would have been her big break overseas, so it’s natural that she got so upset about being passed up.
As it turns out, Byrne missing out on Manderlay might have been a blessing in disguise, as the film offers plenty of examples as to why von Trier is one of the most divisive filmmakers of his generation. John C Reilly quit the project after a real donkey was slaughtered as part of a scene, whereas von Trier would insult Howard’s father as a way to draw a reaction from her.
While she was broadly positive about her experience working with the controversial filmmaker, a different performer might not have been so kind, and in the meantime, Byrne was busy making strides in her own career, appearing in Sofia Coppola’s history-bending Marie Antoinette in 2016, which raised her profile significantly. Then, one year later, she appeared in 28 Weeks Later, which marked her arrival in the US mainstream, managing to get where she wanted to be without having to listen to someone slag off her dad; that’s a win-win.
