Aussie actress and comedienne Rose Byrne spoke to the Aussie Daily Telegraph about her venture into producing, saying that Reese has been a big inspiration to her in doing this:

Byrne reckons there’s been a subtle change in the roles she’s being offered now as compared to five years ago. “Obviously I’m less likely to be playing the ingenue, so you’re offered more parts of the wife or the mother or friend,” she says. “I still read most scripts and go, ‘You know, I’d really rather play the guy part.’”

Indeed, it was this frustration over the work available for women, both in front of and behind the camera, that led Byrne and four Sydney mates – actor Krew Boylan, director Shannon Murphy, writer-director Gracie Otto, and publicist-producer Jessica Carrera – to found collective The Dollhouse Pictures.

“We started to reach out to one another and say, ‘We’re stronger as a team than we are separately, so let’s try to come up with a think tank where we can bandy ideas around,’” she says. “It was really about gearing roles towards women, and developing projects for and by women.”

Byrne concedes the group is inspired by what actors, including Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Drew Barrymore, are doing with their own production companies. “Reese is probably my biggest inspiration,” she says of Witherspoon’s production company, Pacific Standard, which has produced massive hits including Gone Girl and Wild.

The learning curve, however, has been steep. “It’s definitely been challenging,” says Byrne. “Being on the other side of things and discovering how projects are developed, and how difficult it is to find funding – it’s a whole different way of working for me, but I’m learning a lot.”

(The Daily Telegraph)