Best quotes by Rose Byrne

The actor's life, but also the Australian's life. We're wanderers. We like to walk about - we're curious people. I have felt that since I was a teenager.

What has surprised me most about being a celebrity is the fascination with pregnant women. After I had Rocco, the paparazzi came and sought me out. I never had that before. There's a whole industry, literally, based on people having children. I guess because you're changing, putting on weight. It makes me very uncomfortable. I didn't enjoy that much at all.

I have drive, for sure. You have to. It's a tough business; there are a lot of actresses and not a lot of great roles. I don't want to complain because I'm so grateful.

I think people are uncomfortable seeing pregnant women, particularly with any kind of conflict. [Pregnancy is] very much a projection of life and love, but it's also very complicated. People have very complicated pregnancies. They could be accidental or people suffer depression, and that was a really interesting thing for me. And a challenging thing. I have not been pregnant. I don't know what that's like, let alone to be really conflicted about it. Acting in the film about pregnancy was a really interesting thing to do.

With a comedy, it's so important to see it with an audience and an audience who really wants to be there and is enthusiastic, otherwise it can be quite a traumatizing experience.

Australians, we've got a very healthy sense of humor in us. God forbid we take ourselves too seriously so it's kind of a cultural trait.

I think diversity for most actors is such a blessing. It's something definitely I've strived for.

I see some of the clothes from the '90s is back in fashion. That really freaks me out because that's when I grew up.

As you get older, you just lose that confidence and narcissism you have in your twenties. You realize you have less time on the planet, and you become cynical and less confident.

TV is a completely different discipline, which I think I am still learning about. You just have to learn how to work fast and pace yourself.

I used to go to rave parties, too, but I was never savvy with techno.

The British are so funny.

There's a lot of intensity when you're on a set. And then it just goes away and no one's giving you attention or flooding you with compliments.

I've always thought of myself as more of a character actress. I've tried to do different things, but I've always been under the radar and that's how I like it. I've been really blessed to work this long and I just hope I continue to get better and better and better and better.

I tend to spiral out of control if I'm not working. I get panicked and don't know what to do with myself.

The British are so funny. It's like they can't believe I lived in Hackney. 'You could live in Bondi Beach. Why would you want to live in 'Ackney?' But Hackney's fantastic. I'm serious. There are so many artists there. I loved the markets, the parks, the pubs, the diversity. It was a cultural melting-pot.

TV is very much a producer and writer or creator-driven machine in the States. And I'm the kind of actor that needs to be pushed and have someone on my case a little bit, so I suffer from that.

You see someone on the street wearing an outfit and then it's on the cover of a magazine. I love. But, you know, I'm Australian, so I'm not too flashy or glitzy.

I'm generally a people-pleaser so I get high anxiety from any sort of confrontation.

As an artist I just think comedic actors are really underrated.

I think it's only through learning, and doing something uncomfortable, that you can actually change. That's why I wanted to do a play. I was so scared of it and I knew my brain would really be stretched and it was going to be hard. And it was hard and uncomfortable. Instead of naturally wanting to avoid all those feelings I need to lean toward them more. But saying that, don't ask me to make a lasagna or a Coq au vin.

I think it's important to keep an element of fear about yourself because it makes you appreciate the jobs.

I'm ambitious but I'm not particularly competitive. I'll try to get roles, as I think it's healthy to go for things, but... I think there's too much competition between women already. It's important to have female solidarity and support each other and other actresses.

Art, a book, a painting, a song, can definitely inspire change, whether it's a small change or a big change but you know there's novels I've read or a scene in a film that I've seen where I definitely inspired something and made a change or addressed an issue in my life or done something cliche like make a phone call.

Healthy aggression is good, but I think social media can perpetuate that in the worst way. You have to be careful about comparing yourself to others. You can never be somebody else. You will only be yourself, and that's what's great.

I see myself more as a character actress than a celebrity.

What's weird about the cinema business is that you have to have a thick skin while remaining vulnerable as an artist. It comes with time. You get dumped, your heart gets broken.

Anything can happen. Anything happens all the time.

It's important to have female solidarity and support each other and other actresses.

The concept of growing up is so hard to quantify. What have you learned and how have you changed and how have you stayed exactly the same? As I get older, it's something I reflect on more and more. Especially as the generations go on. We wait longer to have families, we wait longer to have responsibilities. Everyone used to be married by 20 and pregnant immediately.

I loved performing; I was always trying to impress my siblings by being a clown. I think that came from being the runt of the litter.

I've been reading The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, which is obviously very dated now but still relevant. It's so interesting to see how far we've come and how far we haven't come with all these myths that people put onto women.

My parents weren't in the arts, but we grew up in Balmain, which at that time was an artistic, bohemian suburb of Sydney. It's a lot more gentrified now. It was very working class, pubs on every corner because it's right by the water so a lot of the guys on the ships and the boats used to go and drink there. It's very posh now.

Comedy has to have momentum in order for it to keep moving along.

People would make fun of me and throw things at me and whatever teenagers do.

They think I'm depressed because I look serious in photos. It's usually because I'm just nervous. But I've stopped dressing for other people. If I think I look good, that's the most important thing.

The roles for women on television have historically always been stronger and that, I would say, is still true. The question is commerce. That's probably where there's a block for a lot of people, the commerce behind it. Where is the audience? And it's so clear to me that there is a huge audience for female-driven projects. People still seem to think it's a fluke when it happens. That's one of the hurdles that's still left to be jumped over.

I'm in love with the city. You can impress an Australian with a city, but you can't impress them with a beach.

I'm absolutely as vulnerable as the next person in terms of being swept up in aspirational Instagrams. You just have to know what is fantasy and what is real. It's always good to have a diverse feed in your life and in your social media.

I was very, very shy when I was little. Acting lets you access all those different parts of yourself to make the character authentic.

I liked the Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest and Cypress Hill.

Here in L.A. the standard of beauty is kind of ridiculous. I want to be doing this when I'm in my fifties and sixties and this isn't what I'm going to look like.

Women watch plenty of television and theater. They're consumers, like everybody else. I think people don't thinking women go to the movies is a thing that still has to be addressed and changed.

I have to rein myself in sometimes.

Making a film is an incredibly technical undertaking.

The writing is so great on TV now; it's such a pleasure to watch.

I definitely had creative people around me, but my parents were more just very encouraging.

I love TV as a viewer.

How competitive am I? A healthy amount. I have four siblings. It was competitive just eating dinner, like, "Everyone, get what you want from the chicken." Plus competing for your parents' attention.

The good thing about having a kid is you don't think about that as much. Like when I turned 30, for instance, that was much more momentous. Forty is particularly great for a woman. It's a big thing.

I've already started saying that I'm 30 when I'm still 29. That way, I'm already there.

My parents were so relaxed by the time I was growing up that I got away with a lot more.

The physical environment of L.A. is really beautiful. It's actually kinda fun, too, if you're working. It's just not really fun if you're not working and you don't know anybody.

Where I am now, you're very much at everybody else's mercy. You have no control over your career in a lot of ways. It's just important to know what your own goals are, because that's empowering.

I often do very serious roles, but really I am a big clown.

Being an actor is mostly about rejection and being out of work. It was a fast lesson in all of that stuff.