Rose Byrne says the wellness industry ‘can be self-serving for narcissists’

Actor conceded it can also be ‘genuinely fulfilling’

Rose Byrne has said that while the wellness industry “can be genuinely fulfilling”, it is also “self-serving for narcissists”.

The Bridesmaids actor was speaking to The Independent in a new interview about her Apple TV+ show Physical, in which she stars as an aerobics instructor in 1980s San Diego.

Talking about what the industry has turned into in the decades since, she said: “It exists in two ways. I think it can be genuinely fulfilling, and also kind of self-serving for narcissists. It’s a very, very grey space.

“There’s a lot of benefits to it, but there are also a lot of charlatans. It’s, you know, overrun with charlatans. But that’s what makes it an interesting thing to examine.”

Byrne also said the Eighties were a “turning point” for the wellness industry. “The rise of aerobics was revolutionary for women, but it’s not something that’s taken very seriously,” she said.

“It changed a lot of people’s lives, and was a place where women found a lot of agency through economic independence.”

Byrne in ‘Physical’ (Apple TV+)

Read The Independent’s feature about how cult-like mentalities have become synonymous with the wellness industry.

Elsewhere in the interview, which can be read in full here, Byrne talked about refusing to play a “nagging wife” and her friendship with Heath Ledger.

‘Physical’ season two is streaming weekly on Apple TV+, with new episodes dropping on Fridays