Rose Byrne names her most underappreciated role: “It never got the credit”
Australia is a wonderful place that has produced many wonderful things, such as the Sydney Opera House, the Great Barrier Reef, Tim-Tams, and even their pool of actors ain’t too bad either.
Margot Robbie is one of the biggest film stars of this generation, while Hugh Jackman held that position in the previous decade, then you’ve got the Hemsworths, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, and the dark horse that is Rose Byrne.
The star from Balmain, New South Wales, is one of the most versatile performers on the planet right now, having done everything from horrors to comedies to superhero blockbusters. In 2025, she made a recent splash in the acclaimed psychological drama If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and with such a healthy career to look back on, Byrne would be forgiven for forgetting some of her less successful ventures.
That isn’t the case, however, as in an interview with Slant, the Aussie took the time to talk about a TV show called Damages, something most people would struggle to remember off the top of their heads, but Byrne thinks it could have been a huge deal.
“Damages is fascinating, because we came out the same year as Mad Men,” she recalled, “Shortly after that was Breaking Bad. HBO had set the bar with The Sopranos and Six Feet Under. It was the beginning of this ‘golden age of TV’ and prestige television. And I look back now and think, ‘Wow, what a time to be launching that show!’ People derive a lot from that show! A lot of shows after were Damages-lite, and it never got the credit.”
First airing on FX in 2007, Damages stars Byrne as an up-and-coming lawyer under the tutelage of the respected and feared Patty Hewes, played by Glenn Close, and each of the five seasons tackled a different intricate case, which would put a strain on the main characters’ relationship. It got strong reviews and drew in a number of high-profile guest stars, but flagging ratings towards the end of its run prevented it from ever cracking that top tier.
There are a number of other reasons as to why Damages isn’t considered part of TV’s ‘golden age’, and one of them is the decision to focus on one story for up to 13 episodes, which meant that, if you didn’t like episode one, then you were out of the whole thing.
It was also hard to maintain interest in a single story for that long, only to drop it the next season, and we can’t rule out our old friend misogyny either. Every other show Byrne mentioned had a predominantly male cast, and here was a show being led by two women during a time period where that sort of thing wasn’t taken seriously; it’s still far from perfect, but we’ve come a long way since 2007.
It might have never taken off in the way Byrne wanted, but Damages still has a strong cult following to this day. Here we are talking about it over a decade after it went off the air; that’s got to count for something!
