Extreme Makeover

In upcoming biopic Judy, Renée Zellweger delivers an astonishing turn as legendary stage and screen star Garland. But a transformation on that scale isn’t easy. Total Film speaks to Zellweger and the team behind her incredible metamorphosis.

- Matt Maytum

When Total Film meets Renée Zellweger in London’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, she looks just like, well, Renée Zellweger: shoulder-length blonde hair, pale blue eyes, that unmistakeable softly spoken Texan lilt. Which wouldn’t normally seem odd unless you’ve seen her in Judy, in which she undergoes an all-encompassing metamorphosis to deliver a showstopping turn as Judy Garland that’s destined to attract all kinds of attention from awards bodies.

“We just kept trying things, and never stopped,” says Zellweger, perched on a brown suede sofa. Convincingly portraying a screen icon renowned the world over is no mean feat, particularly when the said star is also an unparalleled singer and regarded as “the greatest entertainer who ever lived” (according to Fred Astaire). The film is set in 1968, when Garland was performing a string of sell-out concerts in London but was at a low ebb, financially and personally. Having been performing since she was a child actor, the one-time Wizard Of Oz star is exhausted.

“We started with the obvious things,” explains Zellweger of the transformation. “And then there was a process of thinking of everything that was possible to apply and then deconstructing it, to see how little we could get away with. Because Rupert [Goold, director] was very concerned that it’d be an authentic representation of the human experience, not impersonating an iconic superstar. Because the story isn’t really about that part of the experience. It’s about the in-between moments that are not accounted for.”

Goold – a notable theatre director who previously helmed Jonah Hill drama True Story and the first episode of