Fortunately, the critics (and audiences) disagreed. Byrne returned to Australia in 2002 for a cameo role as one of Padmé Amidala’s handmaidens in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones. ‘That was easy, I just stood by Natalie Portman looking very serious,’ she said of the part.
Parts in City of Ghosts, I Capture the Castle, and The Night We Called It a Day followed, as did an award-winning role in The Rage in Placid Lake. By 2004, she was hitting Hollywood, playing the captured…

