Chaz Thorne, and The Tender Hook, with Hugo Weaving, Byrne returned to the mainstream with the role of the mother of a teen, alongside Nicolas Cage, in the sci-fi thriller Knowing (2009), which made US$186.5 million worldwide and met with mixed reviews. Back then, Byrne was not being strategic about her film choices. "You gravitate to where you want to go, but so much is out of your control", she once remarked. After the success of Damages, she asked her agents to send her out for comedies. "I was doing all of this really heavy, dramatic stuff, and I just needed a break,” she stated. Her request was met when she obtained the role of a scandalous pop star and the on and off girlfriend of a free-spirited rock star in the comedy Get Him to the Greek (2010), also starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill. Director Nicholas Stoller admitted that, in her audition, he thought: "'Why is she here?' Because, you know, very good actress, but very serious". Nevertheless, he noted that Byrne "just destroyed [...] Like, destroyed in the way that someone from Saturday Night Live would. And that was that". The film was a commercial success, with a gross of US$60.9 million in North America. 2011 marked a turning point in Byrne's career, as there were three high-profile films released theatrically featuring her in prominent roles that eventually would lead to a trajectory that included three to four films per year. In her first 2011 release, James Wan's horror film Insidious, she starred as one half of a couple whose son inexplicably enters a comatose state and becomes a vessel for ghosts in an astral dimension who want to inhabit his body. Budgeted at US$1.5 million, the film grossed US$97 million and marked the beginning of a whole franchise. The comedy Bridesmaids saw Byrne take on the role of the rich, beautiful, and elite wife of the groom's boss, alongside Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, and Wendi McLendon-Covey. Bridesmaids was both critically and commercially successful; it grossed US$26 million in its opening weekend, and eventually over US$288 million worldwide. Byrne appeared in X-Men: First Class, directed by Matthew Vaughn, as Moira MacTaggert, a character she described as: "a woman in a man's world, she's very feisty and ambitious—you know, she's got a toughness about her which I liked". She said she was unfamiliar with