Meet Renée Zellweger, the star who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Judy Garland, and who is a beacon for women in the film industry

Mar 3 , 2020

Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland in Judy. She won the Oscar for best actress – but the journey wasn’t always easy. Photo: Pathe/BFI/Movie Stills

Bridget Jones’s Diary spoke to a generation, but its star – 51 on April 25 – soon grew weary of the scrutiny and stepped away from the camera for 6 years, before finding a mid-career renaissance in Rupert Goold’s studied, bittersweet biopic, Judy

Renée Zellweger was already a seasoned silver screen pro and Oscar winner, by virtue of her performance in 2003 epic Cold Mountain, by the time she hit the red carpet this year. She had already scooped a handful of trophies on the way, from a Golden Globe to a Hollywood Film Award.

But the journey she took from the screen to the Oscars stage that night as the lead in Rupert Goold’s Judy Garland biopic, Judy , was anything but easy.

“I tried not to think too much about how adored Judy is, and has been, through the generations and how she is an icon for the ages,” Zellweger says. “I tried to take that off the table and instead to look at the film as an exploration of the human experience on the other side of stardom. Otherwise I would have just run away. I let myself be propelled by curiosity and admiration instead.”

Zellweger with her Oscar trophy for best actress, for her performance in Judy. Photo: DPA

Of course, to play one of the entertainment industry’s most well-loved actresses would in itself be no small feat, but to truly capture Garland, Zellweger also needed to do justice to the famous songs from Garland’s glittering career. Though no stranger to vocal performances herself – her work in Chicago (2002) earned her a yet another Oscar nod, after all – Zellweger’s set list this time around was defined by the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz.

“It touched me very deeply,” Zellweger recalls of her first time replicating Garland’s most famous on-screen song.

“It was the end of the live performance sequences that I had been sharing all week with the 300 actors who were playing the audience. It was the final moment of celebration that was shared between us, and all of our affection and admiration for Judy felt very alive at that moment.

“You find yourself thinking of what that song meant to her at that time in her life and the nostalgia we all feel about it changes form as we go through our lives.”