Rose Byrne: Primrose

Not long after coming to Hollywood, Aussie actress Rose Byrne landed in the arms of Brad Pitt in Troy. Now she's being chased by Josh Hartnett in Wicker Park. So much for slow stars.

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After introducing herself to mainstream American audiences as Brad Pitt's feisty love interest in the summer epic Troy, 25-year-old Aussie import Rose Byrne is taking a darker turn as Josh Hartnett's obsessed admirer in MGM's Wicker Park. Not bad for someone whose Hollywood debut was a small role as Natalie Portman's handmaid in the last Star Wars installment.

Though Byrne's entree into high-profile projects seems surprising, it makes sense given her acting chops. She brought a hefty resume of work from Down Under to Hollywood. "In Australia you get to do all your bad work," laughs Byrne. "You know, I've done some dodgy stuff, but it's so far away nobody knows."

Dodgy business aside, Byrne got her start in showbiz at 13 when she was picked out from her youth theater acting class in Sydney to audition for a part in a little-seen indie called Dallas Doll, starring Sandra Bernhard. At 15 she went to work on an Australian "soapy," which according to Byrne was the closest she ever came to letting her head swell. But her family helped keep her ego in check, so by the time she "rocketed to stardom" in her native land opposite a young Heath Ledger in the film Two Hands, she had already developed a low-key attitude about the whole fame game.

"It just meant in my suburb people would say 'well-done on the movie,'" Byrne explains. "Or if you're in a trendy restaurant in the trendy part of the city, probably some people would know who you are, but anywhere else it's a pretty limited demographic."

It was ambition for bigger and better parts, rather than bigger and better celeb status, that brought Byrne to Hollywood. She was cast in Wicker Park, and then sent in an audition tape for Troy. She was originally under consideration to play Helen, aka the face that launched a thousand ships, but she read the script and was immediately drawn to the vestal virgin and prisoner of war Briseis, who is claimed by Greek warrior Achilles (Pitt).

"Helen is a little more poised and measured, whereas Briseis got to really go wild. I'm more comfortable being the feral, ugly one," admits Byrne. Lucky for her, Briseis was the part that landed her in the arms of a buff and bronzed Brad, which involved "intimidating" love scenes that, in the end, felt quite alright. The actors "got to rehearse everything" and Pitt was "very attentive to it" ("it" being the relationship between the characters, of course).

It's easy to understand why Achilles fell for her. On a sunny afternoon, Byrne sports a black Marc Jacobs pea coat and big black Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses. Her shoulder-length brown hair is swept casually into a low ponytail and her complexion bears hardly a trace of makeup. Byrne's beauty is a lot like her style: simple and elegant. Not that she thinks much of it.

"I find that here in L.A. the standard of beauty is kind of ridiculous," she says. "I mean, 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. I'm as fine as the next person, but I'm not that cute here."

We'll see her decidedly less attractive side in Wicker Park, where she plays a deceptive character in the Single White Female vein--a role she enjoyed for the Shakespearean plotting and ploying.

So far so good for Byrne, but she is still admittedly a little cynical about success: "I think you've got to be fairly fatalistic about it, otherwise you'll go crazy about the things you don't get." The way her career is going though, it doesn't look like there will be too much of that.

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