Humiliated and ridiculed by Hollywood: Renée Zellweger returns in search of Oscar
She is a star reborn. The award-winning performer once again stands as one of the favorites to star in the awards season thanks to 'Judy', the biopic about the last months of Judy Garland's life.
In the absence of almost half a year to roll out the red carpet of the Dolby Theater, the afternoon of February 9 should be clearing your agenda. This is stated by media such as The Hollywood Reporter, Variety or Indiewire, who after attending Judy's first press screening at the Telluride Film Festival anticipate in her headlines a golden future for her protagonist.
There are those, like Golden Derby, who dare to play word games to ensure that in the next awards season we will witness a 'Renaissance'. After a decade away from the film industry and turned into the target of tabloid media criticism for her physical changes, Oscar winner Renée Zellweger is reborn from the ashes to give life to actress Judy Garland in an expected biopic and thus vindicate her position as one of the seminal performers of her generation. The one who laughs last, laughs best.
“She was not healthy. She didn't take care of myself. I was the last thing on my list of priorities”, now confesses the interpreter in an interview with New York Magazine, justifying her six years of retirement from the mecca of cinema. She said goodbye in 2010, immersed in a depression and overwhelmed by her total dedication in her day to day life to her public image.
“I needed to not have something to do all the time, not knowing what I was going to have to do for the next two years,” she added. The truth is that this Texan, daughter of a Norwegian nurse and a Swiss engineer, had known the next steps in her career for two decades now, when she became one of the sudden appearances of Hollywood at the end of the century with roles in films from cult like Reality Bites or Empire Records.
His leap to international fame would soon come with the sports melodrama Jerry Maguire which, faced with a passionate declaration of love by Tom Cruise's character, made him pronounce what is already one of the unforgettable phrases in film history: "Shut up … you already had me with the hello'.
The international success of the adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary confirmed her status as America's new girlfriend, taking over from Julia Roberts or Meg Ryan. In her favor, an aura of a 'close' star that allowed the public to identify with her, what they call Everywoman on the other side of the pond.
Her romantic relationship with what was then the highest paid actor on earth, Jim Carrey, added spotlights to her personal life and soon made the covers of fashion magazines and was described by People magazine as one of the women most beautiful in Hollywood. Critics and academics did not shy away from her charms and she managed to become, along with legends such as Meryl Streep or Jack Nicholson, one of the few performers who won three Oscar nominations in consecutive years for Bridget Jones's Diary, Chicago and Cold Mountain. , which ended up earning him a statuette. All three, produced by Harvey Weinstein.
When in October 2017 media such as The New York Times and The New Yorker published the dozens of accusations against the powerful producer for harassment, sexual abuse or rape, the names of the usual actresses in her projects became questionable in the opinion public. Whether it was for having been complicit in the omertá that reigned in Hollywood or for having benefited from her career in exchange for sexual favors.
The name of Zellweger, who had just released the third installment of the Bridget Jones saga on his return to the front line, also came to the fore. Actress Melissa Sagemiller, one of Weinstein's plaintiffs, assured that in 2000 the producer had confirmed that both she and Charlize Theron agreed to have sexual relations with him in exchange for important roles in her films. The Texan issued a statement completely denying any approach. Almost two years after that, she reaffirms that she never felt like a victim.
Much more ruthless was the public scrutiny to which the actress was subjected in 2014 when, in full retirement from Hollywood, she decided to reappear in the spotlight at an awards ceremony. The Internet went crazy at the change in Zellweger's face and the websites of half the world crowded the statements of plastic surgeons who pondered about the possible surgeries to which she would have undergone.
In the background of the controversy, the historical macho vision of the expected physique for a movie star and the disappointment of those who confined the interpreter to the role of her next-door neighbor, with prominent curves and rosy cheeks. “It is no secret that the value of a woman has historically been measured by her appearance.
Although we have evolved to assume female participation in the success of society and take it for granted that women are important in high-level settings, the double standard that is used to underestimate our contributions continues and is perpetuated by daily negative conversations in the form of biting entertainment,” she wrote in a letter to The Huffington Post. Taking into account the current appearance of her, neither more nor less than the expected of Renée Zellweger at 50 years old, the radical change was nothing more than the product of the combination between the lighting and the position of the camera that night.
If last year the great protagonist of the awards season was Lady Gaga and A Star Is Born, this year the spotlight will fall on Renée Zellweger, the reborn star. Taking into account her –at least tumultuous– last decade, it seems no coincidence that the interpreter has chosen the role of the iconic Judy Garland for her return to the big leagues after the premiere this spring of the Netflix series Dilema. In Judy, Zellweger puts herself in the shoes of the actress and singer in the last months of her life in London, in which she gave five weeks of sold-out concerts.
Cursed by insomnia and alcoholism, and involved in the fight for the custody of her children, the interpreter of Over The Rainbow ended up dying of cardiac arrest after suffering an overdose from the barbiturates that she ingested to sleep. As Guy Lodge assures in Variety, the casting of Zellweger as Garland has all the –bittersweet– logic.
"America's once sweetheart and relinquished that title, she plays Garland with the love and heart of someone who has gone over the rainbow and back again." The stalls are already preparing to redeem the one who should never have ceased to be an undeniable star. To us, she already had us with the hello.
