Renée Zellweger Revisits 11 Looks, From Bridget Jones’s Diary To Judy

Hi, British Vogue.

I'm Renée Zellweger, and this is Life in Looks.

[upbeat music]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

That was the best workout of my life.

There is no motivation, like a man chasing you

with a live chainsaw.

That corsage was a force of nature.

It was one of my first leading roles

and I learned about the departments of film,

and I learned about the symbiotic nature

of how each worked with the other

and the rhythms of filmmaking

and boy, it was such a blessing.

I couldn't believe somebody trusted me enough

to let me give it a shot.

Aw, Sharon Maguire, Little Back Dress.

Yeah, that was an incredible time.

Again, couldn't believe somebody trusted me to take that on.

I felt very lucky, very lucky every day.

They made that dress for this scene.

Think Cameron wanted something

that was a little bit classic and a wink back

to the old Shirley MacLaine movies

that inspired the character.

First Vogue, Imposter Syndrome.

Again, I couldn't believe it,

acting in, you know, playing character,

there's something to hide behind.

Within a photo shoot,

I felt personally far more exposed

and really vulnerable, but not anymore.

Now it feels like play to me and it's always fun.

Gosh, that was such a whirlwind, yeah.

Aw, this is my first Oscars, felt like the right first time.

That is my friend L'Wren Scott's first dress.

She styled for the photographer Herb Ritts,

and she was sort of his mainstay,

and she decided

that she was gonna try her hand in designing.

I believe there was a tall boy can of Budweiser

and a bag of Doritos

that went into the preparation for this look.

There's Betty, oh yes, yeah.

I think this is the scene where she needs to take care

of an emergency or something like that.

Costume's a big part of elevating the humor

when you are trying

to play a comedic role 100%

within the context of the story.

You know, she's not a nurse at all.

She's delusional.

[person laughing]

So that she takes it so seriously

and she goes for this standard sort of,

I guess, looks like film noir

or the Hitchcock version of a nurse's uniform.

I mean, that's funny on its own.

This hat, for example, can't get around that hat.

Oh, Bridget.

Goodness, that costume, oh, made me laugh out loud.

It's such an unusual experience to be able

to revisit a character in different stages of her life.

With each iteration,

I think everyone involved, you know,

we're all different people, and to come back together

and explore who these characters

might be at this stage in life

and to have a lot of folks

who have related to these characters

for such a long time, it's pretty special.

I heard some rumor that Hugh Grant kept the pants,

the big pants, but I don't know if that's true.

We'll have to ask him.

Aw, Roxie Hart.

This was an incredible night.

We filmed all night and all had to be perfect at timing

with everybody involved.

And I remember feeling like I just landed

with cake compounds being routine

when we stuck that, the bathroom breaks were very expensive

because those tassel would wrap themselves

all around those fishnet hose.

So we have to sacrifice the hose every time, show business.

[person laughing]

Okay, oh wow.

First of all, it's an incredible dress.

I love that dress.

It's weighted and stuffed at the bottom

so that it holds its shape.

It was a kind of bustle in the back,

and I remember that as we were leaving that night,

a gentleman had stepped on the train

and I kept walking in the other direction

and it ripped it right off my dress

from right beneath my booty.

So I walked in with that pose and I left with that pose,

and there were parties and things afterwards,

but I needed to go home

and do a little bit of a costume change.

And I realized that I didn't bring my house key,

so I had to climb up the balcony to the second floor

and climb in through a little bathroom window

in that dress with the hole under my booty.

[person laughing]

There she is, Judy.

These costumes were incredible.

It makes it really easy to disappear

into a character when you put her clothes on,

especially the way that Jeanine constructed these pieces

because she fit them to the posture that I would assume

to emulate how she carried herself in that time.

And so my shoulders were always forward

automatically right away, ready to go.

They were very itchy, lots of gold thread

and diamantes, but boy, were they beautiful,

just beautiful, works of art Jeanine, way to go.

Ah, well that was a night.

That is Oscar night, 2020.

And I was invited there for the Judy film,

and I won an Oscar.

Yes, in a really, really good dress.

[person laughing]

I mean, the construction of that dress was remarkable.

All of those crystals hand sewn onto the fabric, weighted,

and yet it felt like a T-shirt.

I really felt like myself in that dress,

really elegant in a very understated way.

There are three or four events a day,

so you're up quite late the night before.

And so I went to bed at about three in the morning,

closed my eyes and then I heard this.

Yeah, sounded like that.

And what.

[fabric whirring]

And I put the flashlight behind the headboard

and there he was, there was mouse,

and he was attached to the back of the headboard

and he was scratching on the headboard

and I thought, not now.

So we had to talk and I said, you can stay,

but if you come anywhere near the front side of this bed,

I'm going to change the catch

and release traps in the attic.

Yeah, so probably went to sleep at about five that morning.

That's what you get when you live in the Canyon.

I hadn't really thought about how these experiences

have marked the milestones in my life, but yeah.

So this one, yeah, it feels like it's the culmination

of a lot of years of experience

and this one felt very grown up.

When you work with Tonne,

there's always going to be a creative vision

for the shoot that you don't expect.

It's gonna be fun and different.

And she always is inspired by something

that's going on in the moment that she has something to say.

And yeah, it's fun to be part of it.

What I really took away from this is how sorry I am

I can't tell you all the stories.

[person laughing]

But we could talk about the dresses.

[upbeat music]

Thanks for watching.

I'm Renée Zellweger and this is My Life in Looks.