After Bridget Jones, after the Harvey-at-Miramax years, after a break from acting, Renée Zellweger is ready to play Judy Garland
Photo: Amanda Demme It’s a wildfire-hot August afternoon in Topanga Canyon, the air so dry and still you can practically hear the sagebrush gathering itself for the conflagration. Everyone’s gulping down great lashings of CBD water, including Renée Zellweger, who can’t hydrate fast enough. We have been hanging out now for nearly two hours on the patio of Topanga Living, a little café that’s one of Zellweger’s regular joints.
Zellweger dated rock stars and movie stars and was a genuinely fascinating creature of that last great Hollywood moment before it all became one big smelly sweat sock of adolescent-boy entertainment. She was effortlessly soignée on the red carpet, the darling of fashion editors. And she was a star for Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax: Her three Oscar nominations came for films, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago, and Cold Mountain, that he had produced.
Thanks to the shrink, she realized she was depressed. “Nothing like international humiliation to set your perspective right!” she says with a mordant laugh. “It clarifies what’s important to you. And it shakes off any sort of clingy superficiality … that you didn’t have time for anyway.
“None of it I regret,” Zellweger says. “Though a lot of it? No thank you.” She lets out a honking laugh. “If I could remember more of it, that would be nice, because my 30s are a blur. I think I just didn’t sit still long enough to actually let anything soak in. People are like, ‘Remember that time we …?’ and I have absolutely no recall about the thing at all. What’s my girlfriend say? The file cabinet is bound to get full at some point, and something’s got to fall out the back.
Back then, she couldn’t stop buying up old houses. There was the townhouse on the Upper East Side, the big pile on the East End of Long Island. She was searching, she tells me now. “I did a where-are-you-supposed-to-live tour around 2003. I started in New York City and I had just a toothbrush in my purse and drove all the way out to the Cape.
Judy, an adaptation of the Tony-nominated musical drama End of the Rainbow, is set in 1968, as Garland arrives in London for a five-week run of sold-out shows at the Talk of the Town nightclub — where, predictably, she succumbed to booze and pills and some nights couldn’t perform, unless, of course, she was on and blew the roof off the place.
“Did you ever see that Dick Cavett interview?” says Zellweger, who spent months reading biographies and watching YouTube footage. “She’s just off the charts. And she’s gorgeous in that black dress, the way she saunters on, so playful, and hits the ball back and just aces!” Zellweger, as herself, has that rat-a-tat-tat What’s the news boys? aspect. Some of her stories have a kind of jazz to them; she sometimes launches herself into a riff, and you’re not quite sure where it’s going, but when it finally lands it always makes perfect sense, sometimes even profoundly so. Her texts are threaded through with a similar manic patter.
When Zellweger talks about how Garland was a misunderstood figure, you can’t help but hear echoes of her own struggles. “There was so much that was not allowed for. You’re not allowed to be human. There’s no room on the schedule for her sanity — the choices that were made for her and how she was exploited and … robbed, basically.”
“I think the majority of the films that I’ve made wouldn’t get made today,” Zellweger tells me. “I just don’t think the business model is there to support it anymore — I guess that’s what it comes down to. I feel lucky that I lived that moment, but I don’t mind that it’s different. We’re minstrels. We play for our supper. And that’s what we’re doing more than ever now, and I don’t mind! What I really love about it is that I’m still allowed to do it.
Zellweger really wants to dig deep with me about growing up gay — she is relentless in her pursuit, like the journalist she thought she was going to be before she fell into acting. Can you recognize now what you were afraid of that kept you closeted? Did you feel like it was your cross to bear? Were you in love with your first boyfriend? She asks: “If you were to list the characteristics of the gay men that you know, and obviously we’re talking in a broad-spectrum way.
I bring up something I’d been reluctant to: Weinstein. Zellweger had remained silent as #MeToo unfolded, but after the actress Melissa Sagemiller, in a class-action lawsuit filed in December 2017, claimed that Weinstein had told her that he’d received “sexual favors” from Zellweger and Charlize Theron, Zellweger fired back through a spokesperson: “If Harvey said that, he’s full of shit.”
México Últimas Noticias, México Titulares
Similar News:También puedes leer noticias similares a ésta que hemos recopilado de otras fuentes de noticias.
Taliban claims blast in Afghan capital as US envoy says deal almost finalThe explosion came as a senior US diplomat was visiting Kabul to brief Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on a draft peace accord reached with the insurgents that could see thousands of US troops withdrawn from Afghanistan
Leer más »
My Daughter Is Almost Grown, And I Hope I’ve Raised Her WellBeing a mother isn’t easy, but I can only hope that the deliberate good I’ve done greatly outweighs any unintended damage I may have caused.
Leer más »
Joe Biden: 'I think almost anybody' in 2020 Democratic field could be the presidentIn an interview with the Washington Post&39;s Jonathan Capehart, Joe Biden seemed on the verge of undermining his own campaign&39;s argument in favor of his electability.
Leer más »
Almost 3,000 flights have been cancelled and 5 airports are closing as Hurricane Dorian slowly inches towards the US coastAirlines including American and United have issued travel waivers for those whose flights are affected by Hurricane Dorian.
Leer más »
![Out Of Pocket: Niecy Nash On How Her Dream Vacation In Maui Almost Led To Oprah Taking Her Life [Video]](https://i.headtopics.com/images/2019/9/2/tmz/out-of-pocket-niecy-nash-on-how-her-dream-vacation-in-maui-almost-led-to-oprah-taking-her-life-vid-1168437424483110912.webp?w=640)
Out Of Pocket: Niecy Nash On How Her Dream Vacation In Maui Almost Led To Oprah Taking Her Life [Video]Niecy Nash Talks About How Vacationing With Oprah Came To Fruition One of the perks of working on Ava DuVernay’s masterpiece When They See Us was also getting to work with Oprah–and for…
Leer más »
Telluride: Oscar Buzz Builds For Renée Zellweger, Adam Driver and ‘The Two Popes’This year’s Telluride Film Festival began on Thursday with the Guest/Patron Brunch on a private estate about a 30-minute drive from the center of town. Eggs, bacon and fruit salad were being served…
Leer más »