The turning point in the career of Renee Zellweger's train

Nobody's watching Blu-rays anymore – thanks to Netflix – but you really have to watch Jerry Maguire's Blu-ray.

It features exclusive footage from the first camera test between stars Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger, then an almost unknown actress.

The best and brightest in Hollywood, everyone from Gwyneth Paltrow to Connie Britton, has been auditioned for the role of Dorothy, the lone mother who falls in love with Jerry and everything he stands for in director Cameron Crowe's masterpiece, News.com reports .au.

But no one was fit, neither for Crowe nor for Cruz. And then Zelueger came in.

"You just see something happen when Tom sees it," Crowe said Vanity Fair,

"He lights up. The two of them have a very special chemistry together. This revealed more than the story of the movie … While Jerry finds Dorothy, we find Renee."

When it comes to star-born roles, no one is more stratospheric than Zellweger in Jerry Maguire,

In her performance, the perfect balance is between Dorothy's optimism and her realism, her romantic streak, and the burden of reality being a young single mother caring for her premature baby. She is a classic female character of Cameron Crowe, in the sense that she does not feel completely out of this land, but in Zelweger's hands she becomes habitable and squeezed at the edges. When Zellweger says "Hi there, boy, do you believe her?"

Zellweger came Jerry Maguire marks the beginning of her huge career – one that will eventually end with an Oscar win in 2004 for Cold MountainBut after Zelweger secured the Academy Award, her career flourished and has been out of the public eye for several years. What happened to Renee Zellweger? And will 2019 be her return?

EARLY YEARS

Before he hit the stage in 1996 Jerry Maguire, Zellweger was best known for his roles in The low life and Empire Records, But it was the Oscar-nominated hugely successful Crow and Cruz movie that pushed her career forward.

Then the world was her oyster.

Zelweger followed Jerry Maguire starring alongside Meryl Streep in One real thing (1998), Jim Carrey, who was also her fiance at the time Me, Me and Irene (2000) and Morgan Freeman in Nurse Betty (2000). And then it came together Bridget Jones,

When Zelweger was aired on the screen adaptation of Helen Fielding's hit novel Bridget Jones' Diary, the British press was out for blood.

"Of all the squishy, ​​Hollywood idiots," Evening standard he groaned after hearing the news.

Zellweather was neither British nor the middle-sized woman Bridget was known for. But director Sharon Maguire knew that Zellweger was the one who walked into the room.

"We knew," she said Total movie in 2000. "And we went, 'Oh, well, Texan.'

Zellweger, however, proved that all suckers were wrong by working with a dialect trainer to highlight Bridget's English accent. Once perfect, she kept the focus throughout the period of the shoot, only releasing it at a packing party.

She stopped sporting and gained weight. And she worked for three weeks as a casual assistant at Picador, the same publishing house that published Fielding's novel.

"That meant she had to repeatedly write inflammatory tabloid stories thinking that 'our Bridget' should be played by an American," writes Picador advertising director Camila Ellutti in guard,

"She kept her cool, but scratched the junk at the end of a particularly fantastic piece."

Bridget Jones' Diary was released in 2001 and is an instant success. Zelweger nailed the awkward physical comedy of the affable heroine, while a supporting cast including the rude Hugh Grant and Colin Firth flashed.

The film grossed more than $ 400 million at the box office and cast nominations for Zellweger at the Golden Globes and the Oscars for Best Actress. She lost to Nicole Kidman as Virginia Wolfe The hours,

Oscar

After Bridget, Zellweger's career began during the awards season. The roles she chose were increasingly mirrored with world renown for awards. This included the participation of Roxy Hart in the hugely successful film adaptation of the Broadway musical Chicago, for which Zelweger was again nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar. She lost even though co-star Catherine Zeta-Jones was successful in the Best Supporting Actress category.

And then it came Cold Mountain, Featuring a straight-talking straight photo by Ruby Tewes, Zelweger's makeup artist in a Civil War-era romance won her rave reviews and led to the final Oscar she craved in 2004.

In an emotional acceptance speech, Zellweger said she was "overworked". She thanked her co-stars Kidman and Law, her director Anthony Mingela and her former co-star Cruz, then Kidman's husband, for "showing me this kindness and success very early on, not mutually exclusive."

But Oscar wasn't the only thing Zellweger left Cold Mountain She also got involved with Jack White, lead singer of The White Stripes, who was her co-star in the movie. He received a special shout-out at Zelueger's acceptance speech for "teaching (her) how to dream."

POST-OSCAR LATEST

By December 2004, White and Zellweger had finished, and her career had fallen.

Of course, there was the sequel to Bridget Jones' Diary (Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason) in 2004, but a number of high profile flops followed.

Comedy period Leather, starring George Clooney, inflamed in the box office and with critics, as well as the delusional romantic comedy New in town. Miss Potter, in which Zelueger became the author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, won some awards, but this was still viewed as a disappointment by critics.

The case of Social Worker 39, in which she is involved with Bradley Cooper, is barely registered, though Cooper and Zellweger have been dating for several years after meeting on the set.

Until 2010, in which she starred in only one film (My own love song with Forest Whitaker), Zellweger's recent CV was full of flops. So she rested.

Zelweger went on to Hollywood for six years, not telling every project that came to her. He traveled a little, taking a train through Vietnam to Cambodia and traveling to Liberia.

"I found anonymity," she told the British fashion,

"So I could have an exchange with people on a human level and be seen and heard, not determined by the image that precedes me when I enter a room. You cannot be a good storyteller if you have no life experience, and you can't connect with people. "

In 2014, when Zelueger stepped on his first red carpet in four years, fans speculated that the star may have undergone plastic surgery. Zelueger struck back with a rare statement people magazine: "I'm glad people think I look different! I live a different, happy, fulfilling life and I'm excited that maybe it shows."

She added that the talk of her appearance was "stupid."

"My friends tell me I look relaxed. I'm healthy," the statement said.

"For a long time, I didn't do such a good job. I got a schedule that wasn't realistically sustainable and didn't allow me to take care of myself. Instead of stopping to calibrate, I kept running until I was exhausted and made bad decisions about how to I was aware of the chaos and finally chose different things. "

She followed this with an option of Huffington Post in which she denied having surgery on the eyes and face. ("Not that this is someone's job," she wrote.)

"This fact is not at all true to anyone, but the fact that only the possibility was discussed among respected journalists and became a public conversation is a divergent illustration of confusion with news / entertainment and fixing the public on physicality.

THE COMMENT

When Zellwehr slipped back into Bridget Jones' English accent in 2016. Bridget Jones's baby, she returned to the big screen for the first time in six years. She did not gain as much weight for the role as she had in the past, tells British fashion that "I put on some pounds."

"I put some breasts and a baby bump on, too," she added.

"Bridget is a perfectly normal weight and I have never understood why it matters so much … No male actor would gain such control if he did the same for the role."

Although the film marks a turning point in her career, it was nothing compared to the year Zelweger had in 2019.

First, there is the lead role in the exquisite nightmare show Netflix What if for a phenomenally rich woman who agrees to fund a scientist's life … if she agrees to let her sleep with her husband.

The show is called "deliberately bad" and "an old school soap that shows off the shiny, high-toned packaging." Some critics find it more enjoyable than others, but what is united is that it is impossible to take your eyes off of Zellweger every time she is on screen.

"Whatever reasons Zellwehr had for wanting to take on this role … she's transforming What if single " Atlantic Ocean write.

"Without it, it could be just a diversion, anachronistic, cumbersome, and immediately forgotten. With it is a much more interesting beast, a show that allows the Oscar-winning actor to reveal the flaws of the story and raise it as a curiosity to all at the same time."

And then there is Judy,

In the biography of the same name, published later this year, Zellweger will be playing the role of Judy Garland for the last few months of his life. Since the first trailer was released, the over-the-top movie has reached fever pitch, with much speculation that the role may be to catapult Zellweger back into the spotlight. And in a sense, experiencing the glittering peaks of glory as well as its dangerous lows, Zellweger is one of the best people to understand what Garland went through.

Zelweger chose the movie because the script speaks to her creatively, which is the most important thing for her right now. In fact, talking to fashion in May, she revealed the biggest change in her life, after returning to Hollywood she was able to say no.

"It's funny because over the past few years, being busy creating things and working on these projects has been really quiet. And it's really private," she said.

"It's calmer now, and I also realized that I could be grateful and be responsible and be able to do my job and say no. I can have boundaries."