ROSE BY ANOTHER NAME

“When Rose Byrne departed for Hollywood in 2004 – first stop, Brad Pitt’s bronzed body in Troy – it was with the expectation that she would be the successor to Our Nicole or Our Cate. Instead she returns as a character actor increasingly trying to extend her range.In the past 12 months alone she has been corseted amid the pointed frivolity of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette; the voice of reason on a spaceship hoping to save mankind in Danny Boyle’s sci-fi thriller Sunshine; and a medical officer fleeing zombies in 28 Weeks Later.Yet Byrne’s best performance may be in the smallest of her new works, Karen Moncrieff’s The Dead Girl.”I was sent the script and I thought it was really beautiful – quite haunting and moody and dark,” says the Balmain-born actor. “The language is sparse and little is explained but I couldn’t put it down. I read it in one night and then called my agents saying that I had to meet Karen…”Read more