- That's what I look like when I wake up,
I pretty much look like that.
I just get up and I look pretty much like that lady.
I don't look like that.
Hello, Glamour.
I'm Rose Byrne.
And today we're going to be
taking a little trip down memory lane
and looking at some of my costumes and characters
over the years.
[upbeat music]
This was Troy.
Oh my goodness, I am a baby.
Look at that puppy dog face.
I look like my five-year-old son, Rocco.
[laughs] That's what I see.
[laughs] I just see my son,
looking at me the same expression, like.
That was such a huge film.
I mean, it was this massive production.
I'd come from like independent movies and in Australia,
and this was this, dozens of extras
and a huge big budget and massive wardrobe trucks.
And I got to wear these incredible gowns,
and I got to say, they were very comfortable.
Like, I was kind of lounging around a lot.
I mean, actually, the character had a pretty tough time,
but I was pretty comfortable despite the circumstances.
And I remember when I was tied up like that,
I got a really bad rash on my back
and I got bitten by a bunch of like, bugs.
[laughs] So I had to take a bunch of anti-histamine.
[chuckles]
'Cause it was something, it was in like,
a weird warehouse in, in Malta,
and maybe like, it was not so clean.
Like, that's, I do have a very specific memory of that.
[dramatic music]
So this is "Damages" in 2006,
and Frank Fleming was our costume designer.
I love Frankie and he just dressed me.
You know, it was fun.
Like, Ellen was a kind of, you know,
a just graduated student with not much money
who enters this very high stakes litigation world
led by Glenn Close's character.
And she just becomes incredibly glamorous,
but this was great.
I remember that coat really specifically.
I mean, we had so many doubles of it because of the stunts
and the blood and running down the street in New York.
I remember doing that pilot like it was yesterday,
and it was freezing.
Middle of winter, of course.
And then, this, I love.
This is like, the first season Ellen,
where I had like very dyed, like, way too dyed, dark hair.
Super pale, pretty tense.
[chuckles] But I loved it.
Frank had such a beautiful eye for tailoring.
Everything was just so cut and gorgeous.
A lot of like incredibly high-end designers,
like Bottega Venetta and Celine and Dolce & Gabbana,
like just stunning, stunning cuts and design.
There's Loro Piana.
So that was a lot of fun, very glamorous.
Glenn had some fantastic suits,
like fantastic suits and heels,
and Ellen got more, you know,
kind of sophisticated as she went on.
But we had a lot of fun, but we, I,
I think I definitely like,
stole a few little nice pieces from there. [laughs]
[calm orchestra music]
"Marie Antoinette", 2006.
Oh gosh.
Talk about a costume.
I mean, now we're talking.
This was like, this was Milena Canonero, who is a legend.
You know, she did all of, a lot of Stanley Kubrick's movies,
and of course, Francis Ford Coppola's movies.
And I remember flying to Rome.
I was 24 or something, 25,
and being fit in these incredible designs and corsets.
And I'm one of those weird actresses
that I kind of liked the corset.
Like it just pulls you in, put your boobs up.
It was heavy and we were in Paris,
but I just grew to love it.
It was so part of the world, you know?
I mean, by the end of the day, it was like. [grunting]
You know, like peeling yourself out and like your stomach,
your digestive system,
your digestive system definitely has a period of adjustment.
[laughs] In and out of the corset.
And I was just eating like the French bread,
like just lacerating my mouth
'cause it was like the best pastries and bread in Paris.
But I still have friends from that show.
Jamie Dornan was on that show.
We're still really good friends.
And Clementine Poidatz is a dear friend of mine.
She was in there.
And of course, Jason Schwartzman.
And I saw Kirsten recently, it's really lovely.
It's a great fun movie about an incredible, you know,
star at the time.
I mean, I had some like, maybe two people
helping me get dressed at one point
because of the drama of the,
just the silhouettes that we had, and then the hair and,
and just, Sofia is so chic, you know?
Sofia Coppola directed this,
and her eye for fashion and detail is just,
you know, fantastic.
I believe she won an Academy Award for this.
Looking back, you know, nothing like that,
the costumes from "Marie Antoinette" are just like,
so stunning and such a,
they were so breathtaking to look at and,
and obviously, cumbersome and, you know,
couldn't do much in them and really restrictive.
But in terms of just having fun and like, you know,
exploring different eras.
That is pretty breathtaking, what Milena did.
Talk about a wardrobe, come on.
This is "Get Him to the Greek" in 2010.
This was my first time working with Lisa Evans,
who is the costume designer.
We've done five, maybe six movies together.
She's one of my closest friends.
And she and I first did this movie together
with playing Jackie Q and I could not have had more fun.
This was so silly, and so ridiculous.
You know, Russell Brand just plays this like,
iconic pop star and I'm his girlfriend.
And so we really had to match Russell
and how flamboyant he was and how over the top he was.
I just remember dying at how small that hat is.
[laughs] It's so stupid.
She's got this tiny hat on. [chuckles]
Yeah, Lisa's an incredibly talented designer.
And she just brings so much humor to her costumes
in the most subtle ways.
Loved collaborating with her over the years.
And particularly with Jackie Q,
because nothing was off limits, we just went for it.
I had another incredible costume in this,
which was like a mo, kind a monokini,
like a low cut up here.
Like, a little bit Raquel, Raquel Welch,
it was like a metallic thing.
It was a little bit tribal or something.
And we was like the most ridiculous video clip
that me and Russell shot.
It was so stupid, but it was so funny.
And I just loved it.
I'd never done a character like this.
It was truly so much fun.
I had some hot tracks because they were so funny.
Like, but not that dissimilar
to what real pop stars are singing about.
[laughs] Like, that was the thing,
I was like, this kind of sounds like a good track.
Like, this could be, I don't know, some pop star.
♪ A ring, a ring ♪
♪ Around my dirty posy ♪
♪ My rear pocket is so fit and so damn cozy ♪
♪ A ring, a ring ♪
And look, it's a bit Marie Antoinette.
Look at her wig, Jackie Q's wig.
It's so fantastic.
I remember doing those dance sequences
and all of it was just kind of improvised too.
That was the other thing, you know? [laughs]
A lot of it was just improv and yeah, man.
Oh, gosh.
That's so long ago.
"Bridesmaids", 2011.
This is now 10 years old, which is extraordinary to me.
So this is, oh yeah, so Lisa Evans.
I don't know where to begin.
Lisa Evans, again, my dear friend,
was the costume designer,
and I will never forget this black dress
that we decided that Helen should wear
for hosting her friend's engagement party. [chuckles]
Not her party, her friend's party. [laughs]
And I remember, we had a few other options,
and then we both just could not,
we just put this dress on.
And I was like, like, Helen's going to the Academy Awards.
She's going to Golden Globes.
Like she's, she's got some red carpet in her head.
It's just hysterical.
This is what she's wearing to a party that's not about her.
And this was obviously the scene
when me and Kristen do the toasts back and forth.
And we shot for two days, maybe even three days
in this location for that whole sequence.
We shot deep into the night.
I remember doing that and just,
I just was dying at Kristen's improv of competitive,
[chuckles] competitive toasts, trying not to laugh.
I did not know that it would become what it is now.
It's so beloved and it is a classic.
These other outfits, oh my God.
When they're trying on the bridesmaid's dresses
and it puts the Fritz Bernaise,
I remember the Fritz Bernaise.
It was like the, when they came up with that, that name,
oh, it just was dying.
What, what?
[chuckles] It was so perfect.
And everyone in the different version of the dress. [laughs]
Oh my God, I remember Kristen doing her dance and, you know,
saying "You can spread your legs, you can move in this one."
And trying to get everybody to buy the cheap dress.
And, but a nerve wracking day too.
'Cause that was the day everybody had to throw up,
and not for me 'cause my character was, you know,
uptight and didn't eat or whatever,
but it was a strange day on set.
And I was like, oh no, this is the day we have to
do all the scatological comedy.
But the girls were so game, you know, they just did it.
And yeah, I have just such fond memories
and I cannot believe it was 10 years ago.
I just can't.
I refuse, I refuse to believe it.
[upbeat music]
So this is "Spy", 2015, with Christine Bieselin Clark.
She was the designer, and we had a lot of fun again.
I guess the comedy's where you got to go
to get the good costumes.
I had so much fun with Rayna, it was like,
the Bond girl spy
slash kind of, maybe got lost in a mall in Dubai.
Like she's so over the top,
but kind of has no taste whatsoever. [laughs]
And yet, I remember the hair.
And just, how big it was.
And it was like verging on Marie Antoinette, like that,
lust like, so huge and figuring out the pieces,
and the glamorous makeup and a lot of jewelry.
I remember that.
And I couldn't really walk.
Like a very wealthy housewife in Dubai
who's also a drug lord or something.
I don't know. [laughs]
It's like, amazing.
And just being back with Melissa, you know.
I could tell you, I cannot hold a gun to save my life.
I constantly get shaky arm, like this.
And everyone's like, "All right, cut."
I just have no natural way at all.
And those guns were ridiculous.
I mean, [chuckles] they're like, comical, they're so big.
I love that scene in the pink, the pink shirt.
That was really fun, interrogating Melissa's character.
And you.
You have to stop with these stupid Penny Morgan outfits.
You have to dress like an actual human
And I remember Melissa,
there's another sequence where I'm again,
interrogating her and have her tied up
and I'm threatening her.
My father used to bring people here.
- Did he also make you dress like a slutty dolphin trainer?
- Just another classic Melissa McCarthy line. [laughs]
Melissa just used to die at my costumes.
She'd be like "What are you wearing?"
[upbeat rock music]
So, this is "Mrs. America", 2020.
This was Bina Daigeler, she's a fantastic designer.
She's German.
And you know, when you're playing someone
like Gloria Steinem,
there's really no room for mistakes.
She was, she's so iconic with her look.
Not only her, obviously, her activism and her contribution
and her dedication to so many movements,
the particular feminist movement in the '70s.
She just also was so chic.
And she's one of the few people
who has a silhouette that you instantly know, you know?
And we tripped just endlessly talked about capturing that
and figuring that out and it was always within the,
just the details of everything.
Every fabric, every hair on the wig, every,
and there was so many great images of her.
And it was always about, for me,
just the hair and getting the texture of her hair
because it was not, always had so much texture in it.
And of course the glasses, trying to really figure that out
and what will look good on me too,
'cause obviously, I actually look a lot,
very different from her.
And we're gonna have that translate
to me playing that character.
And that was really fun.
We shot at the Guggenheim when I'm in that little,
hot little mini skirt.
And I was with Jay Ellis, the lovely Jay.
I had so much fun.
And again, on this job,
I got to work with such a great cast of women.
You know, it was such a bunch of fantastic female,
female characters.
[upbeat disco music]
This is "Physical", 2021.
I play Sheila Rubin and she's a quietly tortured housewife.
It's set in the 1980s,
the beginning of the 1980s in San Diego.
And she's in a pretty dysfunctional marriage
that presents as very liberal and progressive,
but is actually pretty stifling and traditional,
and she has a very much a supporting role to her husband.
And she's harboring a really, really damaging, dark illness,
a secret that she can't even articulate.
When we meet Sheila, she's really a child of the '70s,
and she's very much still in that,
in how she looks, how she dresses,
her beliefs, her values.
And then she gets exposed
through a series of unlikely events to an aerobics class,
and through that, which is very unlikely,
she finds a way out.
So these, these costumes were so specific, you know,
to the time.
The '80s is a really specific period, particularly 1980,
because it's very much still the '70s.
And a lot of women back then made their own leotards.
You know, they didn't have access to fabrics
or online shops or whatever factory's making this stuff.
It was a very new thing.
And mostly, women sourced it from either a ballet store
or they would often make it themselves.
I had so many fittings,
I would have thought I was in a Marvel movie.
Every millimeter of those things, or leotards, rather,
are fit to me because it's all proportions, right?
So it's just, bit high, bit more on the butt,
bit more on the boobs, to highlight.
And this is Kameron Lennox, is the designer.
My first time working with her, and she was incredible.
So dedicated and,
you know, just made it look and feel authentic
and not like you were wearing a costume.
And the '80s is easy to parody.
It's a funny decade.
It's so over the top and excessive,
and trying to capture that without,
while taking it seriously is, is challenging.
Sheila's silhouette was really important
and we really wanted her to fill the frame with her hair.
So initially I was,
like, I was airing like,
"I think we need to bring it hair down."
And then by the end, I, it was just like, bigger,
bigger, bigger! [laughs]
'Cause you look at these images from the '80s,
and you just can't believe it.
You're like, "You can't put that on screen.
"That's ridiculous."
And it's honestly what they look like.
I feel so lucky.
I've had so many incredible experiences.
When I finish a job, I just, I never want to see it again.
I'm like, I'm done.
I'm just like, I'm very, church and state, you know,
I kind of move on.
I keep maybe just a token from each job if I can.
So for instance,
I did keep that really cute basket that Sheila has
in that picture when I'm carrying the boombox.
Just like a trinket here and there, I'll try to keep, but,
but, but that's it.
I don't, yeah, I don't go,
I don't get too sentimental I suppose. [laughs]
Thank you, Glamour.
And I hope that you've enjoyed looking back
at some of my costumes and characters
over the past two decades. [chuckles]
Thank you for joining me.
[upbeat disco music]