Rose Byrne on Women’s Empowerment in the Comedy-Drama ‘Physical’
Australian actress, Rose Byrne, reflects on her experience filming Physical, an upcoming Apple TV+ series, as well as the feminist message it conveys.
Rose Byrne’s Physical character is a self-loathing housewife in 1980s San Diego named Sheila Rubin, who happily supports her husband’s run for state assembly but struggles with body image issues behind the scenes. Sheila discovers an aerobics studio that could be her saving grace. However, despite finding a new love for dancing and becoming a successful fitness instructor to raise money for her husband’s campaign, her demons constantly creep up on her.
In an interview with Vogue, the star was asked about the challenges of playing a character who is battling a voice inside her head. She said, “It’s interesting playing a character with such an addiction because it informs everything and so does that voice. It’s uncomfortable and people get a little squirmy, but they relate.” Byrne previously starred in the FX miniseries Mrs. America, which chronicled the struggle to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. She explained that Physical is similar to that show because Sheila is “an activist, she went to Berkeley, and her husband is a liberal professor, but she’s suffering. She’s in this supporting role and she has no agency when we meet her.”
Byrne also reflected on her experience learning aerobics. “We had a fantastic choreographer, Jennifer Hamilton, and she and I started doing Zoom classes. I was in Byron Bay in Australia and she was in California. About two months in advance, we’d do a couple of hours twice a week. It’s addictive!” To get the perfect 1980s look for the show, the star remembers doing “hours of fittings for those leotards” and needing big hairdos to “fill the frame.” She gave fans a sneak peek of her voluminous hairstyle on Instagram.
When asked about the progress that’s been made in the Women’s Movement since the 1970s and ’80s, the actress responded, “Five years ago, a show like this or Mrs. America probably wouldn’t have been made. There’s an appetite for different stories about being a woman. It’s not a monolithic experience. I see more representation on screen and great strides being made but then, you look at reproductive rights being taken away or not [being] accessible to women in so many parts of the world. So, I don’t know.”
The first three episodes of Physical will be available on Apple TV+ on June 18. A new episode will be released every Friday. Be sure to check out the official trailer below.
