Rose Byrne Channels the Complexity of Parenting In New Film, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

0:28Getting the girls trip out of the group chat just feels right. wanted to hear about with an exceptional episode with the one and only Rose Byrne. We're back to culture after fashion. That's right. Chloe, this was a movie I made you see, a really sort of dark indie called If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You. And the reason I made you see it was because I thought the central performance, I mean, I really liked the movie. It's quite dark, but I really liked the movie. And I thought the central performance by Rose Byrne was unlike anything we've ever seen Rose Byrne do before. And I thought how fun it would be to talk to her about it.

0:58You know what's really good for me in like the second week of my new job when I'm just feeling like a fire hose coming at me and then coming home to my children is to then settle in for the most stressful two hours imaginable. I know. I know. I did feel somewhat guilty about that. We loved Rose Byrne. She was a delight. We think this is a big movie for this season. It's directed by Mary Bronstein. It is, as Taylor said, about a mother. almost the entire movie is Rose Byrne's phase. Right. It's about her dealing with a ill daughter, but you never see the daughter until the end. And all shot in Montauk.

1:41It's sort of a low-budget movie, but like a very, very effective one for fans of like the Safdie Brothers type movies, of which Mary Bronstein has a connection to that world. And you come for Rose Byrne and you stay for supporting performances by none other than Conan O 'Brien, his debut in a feature movie, and he's fabulous, and A$AP Rocky, who we love, and the voice of Christian Slater. So there's a lot of fun stuff in this movie, even though it's a stressful watch. Anyway, the film is out on October 10th, and we had a great time talking to her about it and about her life with her husband, Bobby Cannavale, who we love.

2:17We love Bobby. And he's in Art on Broadway, the revival of the play Art, which she talked about, and it was a fun conversation. And they are one of my favorite sort of New York actor couples. I feel like they're both consistently choosing interesting projects. They both seem very invested and involved in New York City theater. And they have a nice Brooklyn life with their two sons with very cute names, Rocco and Rafa. Yeah, we envied those names, didn't we? I know. And then she was like, what are your kids' names? And she was like, oh, traditional. Yeah, totally. She was not impressed with it.

2:50William really thought out of the box for that. Sad for William. That's my son. So without further ado, here's Rose Byrne.

3:04Okay, I want to talk about legs because unfortunately Taylor and I have very different tastes in film. He likes a really stressful film. I do. I do. Well, you know, I love feeling I have where your heart's racing a little bit and you're really... It's like being on a roller coaster for two hours. But I enjoy that. I know, I know. I find that difficult. There's a claustrophobia to the film. I don't disagree. No, the film asks a lot of its audience and it's an experience. It is kind of radical and a little punk rock and it's definitely has a claustrophobia to it and a tone that is a pressure cooker underneath.

3:38But it is released with comedy. I think there is these moments where the kind of the valves release and you're allowed to laugh at the absurdity. And heart. Like there are these moments of real empathy and you do respond to that. So your character's daughter has a kind of eating disorder and it's connected to a feeding tube. And the challenge that your character is facing is that this doctor played by Mary Brownstein is saying that your daughter has to gain something like 50 pounds this week or there's further intervention that's going to happen. Did I summarize that? Yes. That was so brilliant and I could not have done that.

4:13So thank God you're here. And the doctor character is really expressing some quite tacit and not judgment of Rose's character in the way that she is handling. Yes. And your character refuses to sort of be pinned down about when we're going to talk about it and are we going to make our benchmarks. And you're just sort of – there's that – the film is really about this need to escape from reality. You understood this movie. Every time reality sort of – Are you Linda? Are you Linda? Yeah. Well, you know, I have kids too. So listen, we all have. We all have some Linda. It's really tapped into some inner Linda for us.

4:50Linda is my character, by the way, for the audience out there. That's right. That's her name. That's her name. The film, the camera's on your face like the whole time. So it's very, it's like Linda is the main character, but there's very little objectivity from her. It's like you're just kind of in her brain, her face the whole time. It's purely her point of view the entire time. Yes. But my question is, when you got the script, what did you think? I mean, the script was just fire. I don't know how to describe it, but it was electric and red like a fever dream. And it's existential and it's about motherhood and it's about being a caretaker and about therapy.

5:21And, you know, there's many layers. And I felt like simultaneously, you know, terrified and adrenalized by the whole thing. I just thought it was quite extraordinary. And I feel like the film very much reflects the script. Often, you know, a screenplay can be one thing and a film can really evolve into something else. but it's very true to what I read. What was on the pages really do what you see on the screen, yeah. But I did finish the film wondering how draining it was to make the film because I, like, needed to take a bath after. Yeah, your nerves are jangled, for sure. I totally agree. You know, when we shot it, my adrenaline was so high because of the pace we were at.

6:06The film is ambitious. It's ambitious with its sequences. you know, the hamster and the ending at the beach and the roof falling down. This was all done practically. There's very little, very little, if none, special effects. Right. And it was not a big budget. We shot it in 26 or 27 days. And so— In Montauk, actually? In Montauk and around the city. But it was, you know, my adrenaline was so high. It was really not until after. It was a bit like doing a play and then you sort of step on stage and then I a little bit had forgotten what happened in between the start and the finish. and then at the end I felt a little bereft.

6:40I think I felt it has stayed with me and I felt a lot of separation anxiety from Mary Bronstein, the writer-director. She's so good in the movie too. Isn't she great? She's so like hardcore. She has such a weird cameo. I know she's so humorless and like this like doctor who's just the like nemesis of Linda is great. In some ways she's an audience surrogate because the audience sort of wants your character to kind of bear down and make that appointment and all that stuff, you know? And I thought that was interesting that she played that sort of role in the film. A lot of people feel like they haven't seen you in a role like this before.

7:10And there was a show physical, which is much sort of darker kind of comedy than maybe we're used to with you and had elements of drama. This movie has some elements of humor, but make no mistake, this is a very kind of serious film. And so this is not Bridesmaids. To anyone listening who's a fan, be warned. Do these categories matter to you? Like when you look at the script, you think to yourself, this is my way out of like doing the kinds of things that people expect of me. or is it something that you don't even think of in that way? Not really. I mean, I just thought of it as like, what an, I mean, A, an opportunity.

7:44Like, oh God, like, I wouldn't want to, I don't want to mess this up, A. But to your point about genre, you know, we did Telluride Film Festival recently and we did a panel on genre with Jodie Foster and myself and Mary Bronstein and this wonderful director, French director, Rebecca Lutoski, I'm going to mispronounce her last name, a French director who was wonderful. And in any case, we were discussing genre and how what its constraints are, what its freedoms are and this sort of thing. And I feel like with Mary's film to that point, she sort of defies it in a way because there's many different genres in the film, I think, personally, when you're experiencing it.

8:18And for me as a creative, I love to explore all of them. And I feel like they, you know, in terms of like comedy and drama, the best drama is funny and the best comedy is dramatic. And I think, you know, not to be too corny, but kind of comes from the same wellspring, the same place and that tightrope for me is what I love to watch and what I attempt to do, you know, for want of a better explanation. And this film was such an opportunity to have both of those, I think. And it is, of course, very dramatic and it's not in the genre of a bridesmaid or a spy or a neighbors or platonic or something which is far broader and more of a hang comedy.

8:57But it's a gymnastics routine. I mean, you were doing everything. Yeah. But again, like so fulfilling creatively, like really a creative highlight for me of my career, for sure. Tell Rose how old your kids are. Well, yes. My husband and I watched it and he was like, this is too much for you right now. My daughter is three. And if you approach her with a hairbrush just in the same room, just the screams as if she is having every finger pulled off of her. It's just every morning I feel like I'm going through battle. The cortisol levels are high. Yeah. So this really. That's very much what this movie is, you know.

9:35I know. And I really related to that. I mean, I had a moment this weekend where she refused to eat and I just had to walk away. And I feel like I've been very grateful over the past five years. Even more. Rachel Kuss was earlier than that. But that women are feels like finally talking very honestly about motherhood and the complexity of motherhood. And that I feel like even in the last two years, that has ramped up to become even more intense from the Amy Adams movie, Night Bitch. But I found that very validating as someone who's often frustrated with my children, both when they were infants and now when they're toddlers.

10:12And I wonder, were there any texts or films that you went to that helped fill out this character? Well, Mary Bronstein, the writer-director, is very candid about this. This is a pretty personal experience that she went through being a parent. So Mary was always my touchstone for the character and for the story. And I love this dialogue that is finally happening to these projects. I loved Night Bitch. I thought that was extraordinary as a novel. So I feel like with motherhood, there's so much shame around having feelings that are maybe anger, disappointment, frustration, challenges. Claustrophobia.

10:52Claustrophobia. postpartum, all these things that for many years there was no dialogue around or language or anything. And that finally we're getting to discuss that. And it's hard. It's challenging for people to watch and people don't. Mothers are both revered and also dismissed, I think, in society as like, it's obviously the most important job in the world, but yet it is, has so many, you know, lack, you know, shortcomings and lack of support and lack of, you know, we could go on and on about that. But this artistic conversation around it, I think is really inspiring and Mary doesn't pull any punches.

11:24It is very much about that. And the terrible choices my character makes about being a mother and the denial she is in. I mean, the truth is she can't even see her child because she's at that point a caretaker more than a mother and she's not having the typical experience of much joy with her child. And there are moments of that throughout the film and what she's going through as a mother is like 99 % of mothers will not hopefully go through this. It is such a specific thing but that idea of being a caretaker I think is something people can relate to in many different aspects of their life. And that this point, this point of this kind of crisis is that that's where she's at.

12:00And yeah, she doesn't even really see her child. It's very sad. It's very moving at the end. Well, she doesn't. I think what you're saying is exactly right. And I try to sort of remind myself of that. It's like remember to find the joy in this somehow impaired away. But it becomes that you don't even see the child. You just are in your head about how impatient, et cetera. And I thought that what Mary did so well was that you literally don't see your child in the film until the last frame. And that's – it really becomes so much – you are quite literally inside your head. Which is what she wanted.

12:33Yeah. Yeah. It was a wild conceit. When she pitched it to me, I was like, oh, okay. Okay. Now see the child. You sure about that? And she was like, I have this idea. And, you know, and – but obviously I saw the child. She was my scene partner and I very much like all of my choices are informed by Delaney Quinn, this wonderful actress who, you know, we met with a lot of great young actresses and Delaney ended up doing the part and she was just brilliant. And it was also great having a child on set because it brings a levity and it gives, you know, a sense of play that you just have to bring when you have a child on set.

13:03And that was really a gift. How old is Delaney? At the time she was 10. Oh, wow. Okay. So really. Yeah. She's probably 12 now, which is, yeah, but she was a terrific kid and loves horror films. Yeah. Oh, cool. You know, we would just talk about what you talk about with kids. You know, she was gorgeous. Yeah. I wonder if COVID plays a role here because all of us who are parenting through COVID had a pretty unique experience, I would say. You weren't a dark place. How old are your children? My son's just about turn 11 and my daughter's 13. So I'm a little ahead of where you are, I know, with your two boys.

13:35Yeah, and so we have seven and nine and have a stepson who's 30. So we have like the whole kind of gamut. So you were the toughest time for COVID. But I always think now that the age my kids are now would be brutal. I know. I know what you mean. It's definitely, gosh, it was challenging. And I did two quarantines in Australia where that was one of the strictest rules in the world where you didn't leave the hotel and there were like police at them. You know, it was very strict. And I did that twice with my kids for two weeks. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I had legs, too. I know. Which is just a little bit sad by the end.

14:08Well, I was going to say this movie is so dramatic and doesn't happen to 0.1%, we hope, of mothers. But was there any moment of parenting claustrophobia or frustration that you could pull on that you went back to? But maybe it was being quarantined for two weeks in Australia. My sense memory of quarantine was the, like, I mean, I love all the phone calls. That's what I, those phone calls you have with your partner sometimes about the children where it's like. That really hit home for me. It's like those, like, we rehearsed that. In reverse. You know, it's like wild. But that thing of like, and Christian Slater was on the phone the whole time.

14:46And just that thing of when you're trying to, and it's, I find phone calls, they're quite hard to perform. Like, to make them sound authentic. Because you really do have a, anyway. So, Mary was, she was so brilliant with making that all really, really specific and very authentic and very practical. And he would always be in some strange location trying to call in, literally. No, that was perfect when we was at the basketball game. You're like, Graham, sorry, it's breaking up. I can't hear you right now. Linda is very good at hanging up, too, because I'm very bad at hanging up on people. And I noted that in the film.

15:17I was like two or three times, she just like, zip, hangs up the phone. I used to say, I was like, she's really going to hang up? She's going to hang up? Okay, okay, okay. It's so hostile. It's really hostile. It's really a move. I feel like my husband would be thrilled if I hung up. I'm more like, pop, pop, pop, pop. I do want to ask about the last sequence, which I guess is a minor spoiler. but not really. I don't know how to handle this on a podcast but like skip ahead or something. But at the end. Thank you. Thank you for the warning. It's not too much but yeah. You're on the beach and you sort of plunge into the waves over and over again and I feel like I'd almost never seen anything like that before and it was so like.

15:50I shivered. It was sort of scary to watch and I didn't know if there was a little CGI because the waves look really. I mean anyone who's swum in the ocean out there is like it can be pretty dicey. So can you tell me about that? No, well I mean honestly it was. It was such a huge sequence. the entire sort of schedule, to be honest, was kind of around the beach because we had to get it all shot before it got too cold out in Montauk. Oh, yeah. And the strike was going on. We were waiting for a waiver. And all these, it was like a Tetris of like trying to figure all of that stuff out. And so we managed to just get in there right at the end of summer, right when everything was closing up and the beach was still warm enough.

16:25The water was still warm enough that we weren't going to get hypothermia or, you know, that we were going to be able to execute this really ambitious sequence. Yeah, totally. And, you know, like I'm Australian, if you didn't know. I grew up in Sydney and you learn to swim very, very young. You know, 80 % of the population is on the coast. You're in the water as soon as you can walk. Like you're floating around. You know, it's very much part of my culture. So I have a great respect for the ocean and a great – I take it very seriously. And I'm aware of the waves and the currents and all those sorts of things.

16:53And I am not – I don't take that lightly. And it was – Montauk can be really rough. And leading up to that, the waves had been very quiet. and then on the night they all of a sudden came rolling in and there was a sense of all of us were in this together trying to make this work. We nearly lost our cinematographer. He was, you know, out there in the thing, like, you know, going underneath. We had a, you know, we obviously had all of the safety precautions and everything in place, but there was, it was definitely ambitious. And it was your face. Yeah, I'm like, you see a wave like that, I would say to my kids, like, don't go in the ocean at all.

17:27Of course not. And you're throwing yourself headfirst into it. I know, I know. So it was quite a sequence to undertake. And we shot it out of order. And it's the end of the movie. You know, it was many different sort of facets going on. Were the Montauk surfers like gathered around? It was at two in the morning. So there was nobody around. So hardcore. There was nobody around. But the sequence is gorgeous. It is really. It's wild. It's like being knocked out by a wave. It's untamed. It's totally untamed and feral. And she's, yeah, it's her last attempt to kind of escape and, you know, get out of here.

18:01So I'm really proud of the sequence. I think Mary just did such a beautiful job. Was there any part of playing this character that you felt shifted your perspective on motherhood or even just remind you of how unrealistic the expectations of motherhood can be? Every part of the film did. I mean, Mary sharing her story with me, we spoke to a lot of women, mothers of children with special needs. And that was really, you know, as you can imagine, very heavy and very moving. And, you know, you can't describe it. You know, these women sharing these stories of their kids and what they've been through and at various ages.

18:39And they were so wonderful and candid with me. And that has stayed with me and will continue to stay with me. So the little bit I've been exposed to learning about that. But no, on every level, this film has changed my perspective on motherhood in many ways. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have a panic attack when Alice doesn't finish her lunch. And just the complete, the way that you take on someone else's well-being in that way, I thought it's extremely powerful. And I mean, there's something about food, right? And your job is to keep this person alive with eating food. So it's so primal, right?

19:16It's like one of the most – yeah, I have the same thing. If my kids are fussy with something or they want it and you're like immediately just – it's cellular, right? You're like, this is my job. This is my job. And that's what she keeps saying throughout the movie is like – The eating of food takes on a life of its own after a certain age. So like at 13, no problem at all. In fact, we went out to dinner with another couple and all of our kids were above 11, so 11 to say 17. And we ordered a bunch of food and basically the teenagers ate all of it. There was nothing left for the girls. They eat you out of house and home.

19:47I mean, it was intense. Particularly boys. They're little furnaces. These were all girls, too. Oh, they were good, yeah. But they're little furnaces, you know? Good. Little jockey girls. We love to hear it. We love to hear it. But I had a little plate of rice, and that was all I got. I was like, all right. I guess that's it. We're constantly, the amount of times, mostly what Bobby and I talk about is just groceries. Yes, totally. Literally, groceries. So boring. Yeah, what are your calls with Bobby that are like the Christian Slater? It's like schedule and groceries. Schedule and groceries. Oh, yeah.

20:14It's like a constant thing. I don't know if you guys have the same experience. Oh, do we? I mean, this could just be the Vogue Parenting Podcast. This could be the panel. This could be the panel. Although you do do the groceries. I do the groceries and the schedule. I'm the CEO. You're doing it all. But Liz is more fun. So that's how I sort of like. That's what I say. Graham does everything, but I'm more fun. Oh, people come for Bobby and they stay for Bobby. He's definitely more fun. I'm like, they come for him, they stay for him. Liz is better at hugging. He delivers. And he does the groceries.

20:46The run-through will be back in a moment with Rose Byrne. Thank you.

21:19So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

21:29Okay, Rose, I want to hear what it was like working with A$AP Rocky on this film, because he was on the cover of the May issue of Vogue, which was pegged to the Met Gala, and I have to say that was such a fun cover story to work on. Oh, we love Rocky so much. He's like, you know. He really charmed everyone on our team at the Met, because he was a co-host, and everyone was just putty in his hands. I feel like the same experience for everybody. Yeah. It's definitely mine. But he was just so generous and curious. And it was a hard character to play. It's like he's truly the only character with empathy in the film and curiosity and he actually sees what's happening in front of him whereas no one else, my character can't really see anything or hear anything.

22:10There's no one else who's showing that. He's sort of a breath of fresh air. He really is and he keeps the audience engaged, I think, and sort of rooting for my character. And like he's very instrumental in the narrative. And it's a hard needle to thread. And he did it really beautifully. And Mary Bronstein, our writer-director, just knew it had to be him. She's very ingenious with her casting. Yeah, I mean, same with Conan O 'Brien. That's bold to go in being like, I have to have Conan and Rocky. It is. It's punk rock. It really is. It's punk, yeah. She's like, I don't know who's going to play my lead, But as long as I have Conan and Rocky, then— Literally, she's really—that's kind of married to a T.