Renée Zellweger: "Celebrity Is a Different Job Than What I’m Interested In"
When Renée Zellweger gets excited, the Texas twang in her voice pours out of every word. And there’s a lot for Zellweger (and her fans) to be excited about these days—starting, of course, with her first-ever television series, What/If, out on Netflix today.
Over the course of our phone conversation, the Oscar-winning actress punctuates nearly every sentence with an exclamation mark, radiating such genuine enthusiasm that it makes you realize how much you’ve missed seeing those famous crinkled eyes and pursed lips on movie screens. But Zellweger’s hiatus from film was a deliberate one.
From the moment of her star-making turn in 1996’s Jerry Maguire alongside Tom Cruise, Zellweger quickly became one of the most beloved actresses in Hollywood. Over the next 15 years she hopped nimbly from project to project, racking up accolades for her acclaimed roles in musicals (Chicago), comedies (Bridget Jones’s Diary), dramas (Cold Mountain), and biopics (Cinderella Man). After a six-year hiatus, Zellweger returned with 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby and has been easing her way back into the spotlight ever since.
Starting this summer, a Renée-ssance is in the works, with a pair of new projects starring Zellweger in two of her showiest roles yet. Ahead of this fall’s Judy Garland biopic Judy, Zellweger stars as a sinister Silicon Valley investor in the new Netflix limited series What/If. Out today, What/If is another deliciously soapy drama from Revenge creator Mike Kelly that involves business and relationship intrigue. Vogue caught up with Zellweger to chat about her first series role, what she learned during her time away from Hollywood, and why you won’t be seeing her on social media anytime soon.
You've done a little television work in the past but What/If is your first series role. How’d you get involved with the project?
I was invited to meet John—sorry, Mike Kelly! John Kelly is my favorite chocolate!
Same difference!
John Kelly, Mike Kelly, they're on par! I was invited to go and meet him and we sat and chatted and I thought, I need to know this person. I just found his motivation for wanting to write and explore this socially relevant material so compelling. And when he started talking about Mrs. Robinson and Anne Bancroft as his basis for Anne Montgomery, I was hooked.
What was it about Anne that jumped out at you?
She's outrageous and she is entitled and she is ambitious at all costs and she is sexually provocative and manipulative. I mean, how fun is that?
What's the biggest difference you experienced working on television versus film?
People were saying, 'You'll love television, but it's quick. The pace is very fast and you won't have a lot of time to get the material down.' And I didn't find that to be true at all, especially with film today, how you have to lie and say, 'Sure we can shoot four months of material in three weeks, no problem!’ I didn't really sense a difference in terms of the process with the exception of not having all of the words in advance and knowing what choices to make based on where the character needs to go or end up. So that was different and new for me and I'd never done that before.
Do you think you'll now be more interested in pursuing more television projects, or is your heart still firmly planted in film?
I love cinema, I do. I love cinema. But in terms of the process and the creative experience, I can't differentiate. What I love about both is the collaborative effort and the creative exploration and the storytelling and just solving problems everyday and seeing something come to life while exploring the avenues to real life and realizing a person's trajectory. I love that, and the medium doesn't really make a difference. There’s a renaissance happening in television and it's a writer’s day finally where they have the opportunity to do original material that they've been carrying around in their brains for years. And now that there's an endless need for content, there's opportunity everywhere and I love that. It's so varied and vast. I mean, what fun, you know?
You decided to take a break from acting in 2010 before returning in 2016 with Bridget Jones's Baby. You've been steadily taking on more projects since then, and I'm curious why you initially decided to take that time off.
I don't even know if it was a conscious decision more than it was time for something else. You find a project you want to do next and I found something else I wanted to do next that didn't have anything to do with my career. I wanted to explore things, I wanted to be still for a minute, and I needed to tend to my personal life for a minute and not let that be secondary to my professional obligations or the choices that I wanted to make creatively. They needed to take a back burner for a second.
And I was bored of myself. I was bored of the merry-go-round, as John Lennon put it. I didn't want to hear myself talk anymore about my "process" or "this film" or "that experience." I wanted to learn something new. How can you possibly relate to the characters that you'd like to play in the future if you have no life experience of your own, except for what you're regurgitating from your past? What about now? Who are you now as a grown-up person? I needed to go and find that out a little bit and just be still.
With What/If out today and Judy arriving later this year, what are your feelings about being so central in the spotlight after stepping away from the industry? Are you approaching stardom with a different mindset than you did before?
It's funny, because over the last few years, with being busy creating things and working on these projects, it's been really quiet. And it’s been really private. It's more peaceful now, and I've also come to realize that ‘Oh, I can be grateful and I can be responsible and I can do my job and say no.’ I can have some boundaries.
One of my favorite things about your performance is that even though Anne is an absolute monster, you’re such a gifted comedic actress and bring a lot of humor to the character. Are you drawn to comedy even in more traditionally dramatic roles?
Oh, that's so kind. I find that most interesting. I love it when a character isn't what you think she's going to be. I find it more interesting when the choices aren't obvious and I find that there's always something funny inside of the deadly serious and the frightfully outrageous.
You looked like you were having a blast shooting arrows at your costar Jane Levy.
Oh gosh, yes, that was a great day. I'm not sure she felt the same way from across the room! Boy, I loved it, though! Have you ever done archery? I highly recommend it.
I never have, but it seems like the ultimate stress relief.
Yes! And you can HURT yourself. Oh goodness, I had no idea. It is a violent sport—but I loved it!
You've always made it a point to keep your personal life as private as possible. Why is it important for you not to indulge in that sort of oversharing that's become so integral to celebrity culture?
I think that's a different job than the one I'm interested in. Celebrity is a different job than what I'm interested in. I like the collaborative, creative experience. It's a blue-collar job, you know? Getting together with a group of people where we're all solving problems together and everybody does their thing. They’re all at the top of their game and everyone is giving it their all. Nobody says, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ That's what I love.
I see where [social media] has its place, and I'm not knocking it at all. Maybe one day I'll want to do that. It’s an understatement to say it's changing the world so I'll never dismiss it as trivial or unimportant at all. My parents raised me to be comfortable with a different level of privacy and that not everybody needs to know about your personal business because it's kind of boring. It's boring!
Also I don't like to diminish the importance of sacred things by talking about them with four or five words or however many characters or less. I feel like certain things in your life deserve more reverence, and certain things in your life should be honored by saving them for meaningful conversations with the people that you love. You know what I mean?
Of course, and that's such a thoughtful take as well. It’s easy to fully dismiss social media, but I love that you see the merits, even while not wanting to use it yourself.
Oh god, yes, it looks like so many people have so much fun with it and I think it's been so important and taught us a lot about ourselves as a society.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
