VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Rose Byrne Reveals Why She Licked Steve Carell’s Face On ‘Irresistible’ Set

The movie follows a Democratic political consultant (Carell) who decides to help a retired Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) run for mayor of his small Wisconsin town. The Republican National Committee gets wind of his plan and sends his old nemesis (Byrne) to run the campaign against him.

The feud between Byrne’s character Faith and Carell’s character Gary make up a large chunk of the comedy and drama in the film.

“The first scene, the first day that I filmed, I had to lick his [Carell’s] face. So, I was baptism by fire, I was so nervous, and Faith is not a nervous character, so I was doing some hard acting that day,” Byrne told to uInterview’s Erik Meers. “And I’ve had an acting crush on Steve for so long and he’s so unexpected and he’s such a mystery. You don’t know much about him and I loved that, I’m inspired by that.

“You know like all the great kind of comedians and actors I’ve gotten to work with, he just works really hard, puts his head down and you don’t see how hard he’s working,” Byrne said of Carell. “He definitely makes it look absolutely effortless.”

Byrne also described what it was like working with another comedy legend, Stewart, who wrote and directed the film.

“Being in the presence of someone like that is really overwhelming because you just want to ask them so many questions and you want to listen to everything they say,” Byrne said. “He’s such a singular voice. He’s very disarming. He’s so down to earth, he’ll talk to the grip, just as long as he’ll talk to the local folk, just as long as he’ll talk to me.”

“I felt spoiled when I got to hang out and talk to him,” she said of Stewart.

Byrne’s favorite scene in the movie?

“I think the ending is really fun and unexpected and I think that’s kind of a delightful twist at the end. I really liked watching that.” she teased.

The movie was released on June 26, and you can watch it on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, on-demand and in select theaters. Check out the trailer below: