She’s wearing it all pretty well.
We were a film crew coming in and taking over, Byrne says.
There was an element of mirroring of what we were dealing with [in the movie].
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
She felt it again later that year in Toronto while filmingMrs.
America, FX on Hulus 70s-era limited series for which she transformed into feminist icon Gloria Steinem.
It was kind of extraordinary.
Sabrina Lantos/FX
On the Thursday, they closed Broadway.
It was quite surreal.
We managed to do this run right under the wire."
Daniel McFadden/Focus Features
So, yes, this is as good a time for reflection as any.
Indeed, few are better able to readjust than Byrne.
Getting a compliment of that magnitude just makes her giggle.
There she is again!
One skill she comfortably owns: Im quite good at leaving things at the gate when Im done.
“Most of the time you dont get it.
Always the project as a whole is what interests me the most.”
“[Gloria’s] the most well known of the feminists,” Byrne says.
“She has so much agency in her voice.
I was so nervous that I would stuff it up.
Someone like that, too, people project so much onto [them].”
Ultimately, she found the work and the character too enticing to pass up.
[Gloria] grew up in the Great Depression.
She was the primary caregiver for her mother, who suffered from mental illness.
Surviving such an unusual childhood brings out somebodys true colors.
She clearly had a huge well of ways to cope.
(Another convincing factor: the star-studded cast, led byCate Blanchett.)
Irresistible, meanwhile, marked her return to comedy.
To play this really ruthless, smiling assassin was so fun.
That, she says, is classic Stewart satire.
“That was the first scene that we shot,” she recalls.
“It was just one of his crazy ideas.
Unlike the pressures of playing Steinem or modernizingMedea, Byrne saysIrresistiblewas more whimsical.
The research phase, not so much.
I’m a news junkie already,” she mentions.
Byrne finds TV anchors in Europe and England “very sobering” with “no fanfare.”
In the U.S., “its like youre watching the Academy Awards some times.
Its such a presentation.
Nobody does entertainment better than America, including the news, which… maybe newsshouldn’tbe entertainment.”
“I want to get it right for you,” she mumbles while scrolling through her history.
“Is itThe War Room?”
“James Carville is the head campaign manager.
He has this great combative relationship with Mary Matalin, whos on the Republican side.
But they also have a relationship, and that was a really good reference.”
Bryne saysIrresistibleisn’t trying to present one side of the political aisle as good and the other as evil.
It’s also a level of sharp, comedic timing that only Byrne can do.
In all this, Byrne feels quite lucky.
And now Im talking to you about itduring a pandemic!
Tick…" All she can do is laugh sometimes.
“Who knows how long that will be?
On that note, she suggests, Try the Penicillin.
Itll put on a smile on your face.”
Irresistiblewill be available for viewing on PVOD platforms starting June 26.
For more fromEntertainment Weeklys summer preview,order the June issue now.
