Rose Byrne

[on being labeled the next big thing] I don’t take it seriously. Because I’m the one living my life. I mean, I’ve got this tiny part in this big Brad Pitt movie, and everyone here thinks I’m playing Sally to Brad Pitt’s Harry. I’m not, and I’m constantly having to say that.

I’ve had some pretty good experiences on everything, even if the film doesn’t always work.

I’d say I’m a bit of a fatalist but not as much as I was. I used to be like “whatever happens happens” and have that innate fatalistic outlook. But I think it’s more about what you are thinking in your own mind that is the most powerful aspect of controlling your own life.

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

I think a movie can inspire change, absolutely. 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 cliché like make a phone call. Absolutely, that’s the power of art you would call it because it inspires movement within yourself. You know it’s only really powerful when it reflects on you and you can relate to it or are moved by it in some way.

[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?”

The fans are just as crazy. because we have the young fans and the old fans now, so it’s more like double-trouble for us.

I guess I was a floater, but not really. I don’t know. I didn’t get high school.

My vocal style I haven’t tried to copy from anyone. It just developed until it became the girlish whine it is today.

How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?

My career has been a combination of hard work and timing. Working with Stevie Wonder at the Kennedy Center Honors was timing. The Tonight Show was timing. Carnegie Hall, that was timing. My marriage was timing. I was ready, I wanted to know what it was like.

At this point, we aren’t just flirting with disaster; we’re rounding third base and asking if disaster has any condoms.

There were the Pussycat Dolls, and there’s a band called Perfect Pussy, but they’re white, so they get the pass. I can’t be Junglepussy and black, but I just push through, especially when my mother says she doesn’t have a problem with it.

The things that people do come so easy to me. I could do it in my sleep. But I’m such a perfectionist that when something is too easy to me, I actually feel guilty.

Gravity is nominated for best film. It’s the story of how George Clooney would rather float away into space and die than spend one more minute with a woman his own age.

When you get a chance to step back, you notice all these great things you’ve done and all these great people that you’ve worked with.

Well, once we finish something, I can’t really listen to it because all I hear are problems.

[on the death of Stan Lee] I owe it all to you, Rest in Peace Stan

We all have a childhood dream that when there is love, everything goes like silk, but the reality is that marriage requires a lot of compromise.

I want to thank my parents for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities.

You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring.