1994–2006: Beginnings
Byrne obtained her first film role in Dallas Doll (1994) when she was 15 years old.[15] Throughout the 1990s, she appeared in several Australian television shows, such as Wildside (1997) and Echo Point (1995), and starred as the love interest in the film Two Hands (1999), opposite fellow up-and-coming actor Heath Ledger. A role in the award-winning film My Mother Frank (2000) was followed by her first leading role in Clara Law's The Goddess of 1967 (also 2000), which gained her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 57th Venice International Film Festival. Byrne revealed in a post-award interview that, prior to winning the Venice Film Festival Award, she was surprised by her own performance and found it confronting watching the film because her acting was "too depressing". Byrne admitted that "watching myself is confronting because I'm convinced I can't act and I want to get out, that's how insecure I am."[2]
On stage, Byrne starred in La Dispute and in a production of Anton Chekhov's classic Three Sisters at the Sydney Theatre Company.[16] In 2002, she made a brief appearance as Dormé, the handmaiden to Natalie Portman's Senator Padmé Amidala, in George Lucas's Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. She then transitioned to Hollywood as she appeared in the 2002 thriller City of Ghosts, with Matt Dillon. Byrne had flown to the UK to shoot I Capture the Castle (2003), Tim Fywell's adaptation of the 1948 novel of the same title by Dodie Smith. In it, she portrayed Rose Mortmain, the elder sister of Romola Garai's Cassandra.
In 2003, Byrne starred in three Australian films; The Night We Called It a Day, with Melanie Griffith and Dennis Hopper; The Rage in Placid Lake, with Ben Lee; and Take Away, alongside Vince Colosimo, Stephen Curry, John Howard and Nathan Phillips. All films were comedies and opened to varying degrees of success at the box office, but The Rage in Placid Lake earned Byrne an AACTA Award nomination for Best Actress. In the epic drama Troy (2004), she took on the role of Briseis, the captured priestess presented to "amuse" Brad Pitt's Achilles.[17] Variety's review of the film stated: "Byrne's spoils-of-war chattel plays more as a convenient invention than as a woman who could possibly turn Achilles’ head and heart around".[18] In her other 2004 film release, the thriller Wicker Park, Byrne appeared, opposite Josh Hartnett and Diane Kruger, as the girlfriend of a young advertising executive's old friend.[19] Wicker Park director Paul McGuigan described her as the best actress he has worked with, and her Troy co-star Peter O'Toole described her as "beautiful, uncomplicated, simple, pure actress and a very nice girl".
Byrne reunited with Peter O'Toole, playing a young servant, in the BBC TV drama Casanova (2005), a three-episode production about 18th century Italian adventurer Giacomo Casanova. In 2005, she also starred with Snoop Dogg in The Tenants, based on Bernard Malamud's novel. In 2006, Byrne portrayed Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac, a French aristocrat and friend of Marie Antoinette, in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst; and appeared as a medical examiner who thinks the dead woman she is prepping is her missing sister in the critically acclaimed thriller The Dead Girl,[21] directed by Karen Moncrieff.
2007–2012: Breakthrough
In 2007, Byrne had significant parts in two studio sci-fi thriller films. She played a space vessel's pilot[22] in Danny Boyle's[23] Sunshine,[24] alongside Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans, and also an army medical officer in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Boyle's 28 Days Later. While Sunshine flopped, 28 Weeks Later was a critical success and grossed over US$64.2 million globally.[25] In 2007, Byrne began playing Ellen Parsons, a bright, young attorney, in the FX legal thriller television series Damages, alongside Glenn Close.[26]
2013–present: Continued comedic roles and Insidious films
Byrne had four film releases and one short film in 2013. She obtained the part of the newlywed wife, opposite Rafe Spall, in I Give It a Year, a comedy about the trials and tribulations of a couple during their first year of marriage. The Hollywood Reporter found Byrne and Spall to be "mismatched",[43] while Variety praised their chemistry and noted: "Year will do nothing but enhance the reputations of its core actors, especially Byrne, who's shaping up into an ace comedienne perfectly suited to screwball".[44] The film was a commercial success in the UK and Australia, where it was given a wide release in theatres.[45] In The Place Beyond the Pines, a generational drama directed by Derek Cianfrance, she appeared with Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, as the wife of a police officer who shoots a bank robber and has to deal with the consequences.[46][47]
