Rose Byrne

I did audition for “Home and Away”, but they never called me back. I feel I escaped in a way.

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.

[on her role in “Star Wars: Episode II”] That was easy, I just stood by Natalie Portman looking very serious.

[On her most dreadful crush] I used to drive, pretty pathetically, I’d just drive by their house all the time and they didn’t know who I was. I’d just drive by the house all the time. I once knocked on the window and I thought, “What am I doing? What am I going to say if they come to the door and don’t know who I am?”

I’m starting to know how the world works a bit, and I’m learning more and more that the only thing that matters is what happens between ‘action’ and ‘cut’. I’m allowing myself to be a bit more selfish, for want of a better word, just that it’s OK to focus and that I don’t have to be nice to everybody.

I guess you can get to a level where you choose. I guess when you reach that point maybe you start making decisions about whether you want to be a leading man or woman. I’m not at that point at all. 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’m probably in that next group of actors they call if Scarlett (Johansson) or Keira (Knightley) turns down a part. But I feel really lucky. To be a working actor is pretty incredible, because 99 per cent of actors are out of work. I know a lot of talented people who are better actors than me but haven’t had a break. It’s all down to timing and luck.

I am now determined to do really weird parts but I think I overdo it in auditions so nobody really trusts me!

I don’t have a sound bite for everything.

Maybe the best is yet to come, but I’ve already had the best.

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

You just have to play every scene honestly and forget about a reaction and what the audience is going to think. I think the more seriously you take something, the more funny it might be.

In Washington, officials from the National Rifle Association met with a group of high school students. There were no survivors.

The only way I could get comfortable around people was to make them laugh. I was an obedient girl, and humor was my one form of rebellion.

Maybe my fairytale has a different ending than I dreamed it would. But that’s OK.

People say you can’t please everyone all the time. I don’t believe that. I think you can. I’m not like, ‘Oh I’m Kanye West.’ I’m like, ‘Oh you don’t like it? Oh wow!’ To the point where I know you have to like it.

By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f**ing life.

The most romantic thing, a lovely boy bought me a dress once. He got my measurements, actually they were from “The Notebook” and I had them sitting somewhere, and he found them and bought me this dress, tailor-made, this beautiful little black cocktail dress. And I thought that was very, very classy.

Guys act strange around me. I swear I don’t know why!

When I was a child, I had posters of James Dean in my room. I was a big admirer of his work and was fascinated by him living on the edge. Looking back, my life was kind of the same.