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Despite 2020 going down in history as the year Hollywood—and the world at large—changed forever, it’s also more fortunately the year that Rose Byrne showed us exactly what she’s capable of. First, she turned in a monstrous, devastating performance in “Medea” at BAM as part of its winter theater programming; then she delivered a pitch-perfect comedic turn in Paramount Pictures’ “Like a Boss”; and then came “Mrs. America.” Byrne stars in the FX on Hulu limited series alongside Cate Blanchett, Uzo Aduba, Sarah Paulson, and many more as progressive revolutionary and feminist icon Gloria Steinem. The series from creator Dahvi Waller dives deep into the events that led to the rise of far right politics during the culture war of the 1970s, and Steinem and others’ efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. “It was an extra special experience, it really was,” Byrne told us over Instagram Live back in April. “You never get to work with that many women. It did feel special.”
You Can’t Pin Rose Byrne Down—and That’s Just the Way She Likes It “Mrs. America” shows the tapestry of the moment, through the eyes of living icons.
“I was initially like, ‘Are you crazy!?’ How do you even begin to do something like that? Obviously Gloria Steinem is still incredibly active and has so much presence in her activism and in her writing and in her voice, so that alone is intimidating, and then to bring such an iconic figure to life, who already has so many preconceptions about her…. You project so much onto someone that well known. But I couldn’t be more excited about it. It was this really unusual story of a time that in a way was quite forgotten in history, of the second-wave feminist movement, and all of the characters within that and all of the drama on the antifeminist side and feminist side, and the tapestry Dahvi had created. That, to me, was the point of entry of wanting to do it.”
Phyllis Schlafly (played by Blanchett) was a precursor to Donald Trump.
“I didn’t know much about Phyllis Schlafly until she came out in support of Trump in 2016, so revisiting this time in history, you really saw how everything was sort of engineered for today, in terms of the cult of personality in the GOP and the divisions that were really created, and just this idea of ‘alternative facts’ and stuff like that…. Often on set, we would be like, ‘Wow, we’re just talking about the same thing now 45 years later as what they’re discussing in 1975.’ So it was a bit surreal at times.”
Byrne was obsessed with getting Steinem right onscreen.
“There’s so much stuff about her out there. Gloria is just incredible. I didn’t know anything about her childhood, so just to read about that, and obviously one of her seminal books, ‘My Life on the Road,’ is a brilliant read and everyone should read it regardless of where you stand on feminism—it’s just a great book. But that was incredibly informative. So I would carry all my books around and be constantly referencing them. And then it was just an obsession about trying to get the silhouette right. She’s so iconic with her look, and [I was] trying to make it more than just a caricature.”
Want to hear more from Byrne? Watch our full Backstage Live interview at our Instagram page, @backstagecast.
This story originally appeared in the July 2 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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