Rose Byrne (‘Physical’) on managing Sheila’s ‘wildly complicated’ web of secrets [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“She’s a wildly complicated character,” says Rose Byrne of Sheila, the central figure of her series “Physical” on Apple TV+. Season 2 of the series takes Sheila on a wild ride as her addiction, and mounting secrets, threaten to overturn her life. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
“When you have such an addiction and illness, it’s so hard to be intimate and close to anyone because it requires vulnerability,” explains Byrne. Sheila battles an eating disorder in the series which often pushes her to the brink. Not only must she contend with the compulsion to binge eat, but the desire to keep her illness hidden from everyone around her affects every aspect of her life. Sheila is a master of secrets. The resulting sense of isolation is terrible for the character, but provides Byrne with fascinating material to dive into.
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Sheila’s secrets often manifest through an inner voice, filling her head with constant self doubt and shame. Byrne gushes that this voice is one of her “favorite parts” of working on the series. “It’s challenging, technically,” she reveals, noting that her stand-in usually reads those lines aloud on the set in order for Byrne to process the emotion and allow it to read across her face. Later, the actress gets in a booth to record the lines herself. She knows that plenty of actors would dread this extra, extensive process, but she sees it as an opportunity. “I’m one of those strange beasts… I love ADR,” admits Byrne, “I feel like you can fix things. It’s such a great technical chance to have another shot at it.”
As the inner voice grows bolder this season, certain secrets which would normally remain in Sheila’s mind are suddenly wrenched out into the open. This is best exemplified in a truly wild encounter with fellow exercise guru Vinnie Green (Murray Bartlett). Each character is more troubled than they will admit, and end up in an epic aerobics duel. Endorphins get the better of them and they spill their secrets to each other. “It was a culmination of so many things,” describes Byrne of the sequence. “He’s such a cautionary tale…there’s a sense of danger around that character.” The actress believes that Sheila needed to peel back the curtain on someone she looked up to in order to start her own self examination and path to recovery. The moment marks a turning point where Sheila begins to take “control of her narrative.”
WATCH Stephanie Laing interview: ‘Physical’ director and EP
Byrne is working within a new narrative herself, on a brand new comedy series with Seth Rogen titled “Platonic.” Also streaming on Apple TV+, the show centers on two friends who try to add some excitement to mid-life. The tone is much more broad than anything on “Physical,” “It was a crazy experience for me,” admits Byrne of the transition into a straight up comedy. “It had been a while since I had been in that environment,” she explains, “It’s a different muscle”
The actress also appreciates the ability to work with Rogen in a new capacity. The pair first collaborated on the film “Neighbors” where they played a married couple. In “Platonic,” they play friends and get to explore something closer to a buddy comedy. “Figuring out the comedy again with that new dynamic was really fun,” expresses Byrne, “And actually we had new opportunities because of that.”
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