As someone who stepped away from Hollywood for a couple years, Renee Zellweger has a unique take on life in the spotlight.
She’s come back in a big way this year with the Judy Garland biopic Judy, and she’s taken all the lessons she’s learned with her. In a new InStyle profile, she explains:
“Different hardships that are unexpected can sort of assist you moving forward. With this job, it’s peculiar because you’re not born with the faculties to know how to handle the things that come your way. I found that shifting your perspective is really important.”
Like when it comes to scrutiny in the media for instance…
“I don’t internalize things, and I don’t personalize things, and I don’t engage. I spend a lot of time focusing on the work itself, not the consequences of the work or people’s perceptions of it.”
Renee says she learned “pretty early on” in her Hollywood career to tune out the rumor mill.
Related: Renee Raises Questions With ‘Being The Ex’ Of A Gay Man Comment
It started out as a hard lesson as she was going through a painful split — and suddenly she saw it being covered so cavalierly in the press:
“I was devastated about a breakup, and it was plastered all over the tabloids. None of it true, all of it humiliating. Never mind that living the experience [of the relationship] was plenty.”
BTW, we obviously don’t know for sure if this was about her breakup with Jim Carrey back in 2000, but that’s definitely the first time we remember the tabloids covering her love life — since he was already such a big star at the time. (This was before Bridget Jones launched her into megastardom.)
The coverage was quite painful for Renee… until one incident turned her around on it.
She recalls:
“I was at a supermarket with my brother. And he saw some of those magazines, and, unbeknownst to me, he bought them. He opened one while I’m driving down Sunset Boulevard, and I looked over, and his shoulders were shaking. I was trying to figure out what was going on. I was like, ‘Is he crying?’ He was in tears.”
But he wasn’t crying because he was upset. She continues:
“He was laughing so hard, he could barely breathe.”
OMG, whut??
“He’s reading my quotes from this supposed interview I had done. Things I supposedly said about this personal relationship that I have never talked about and never will. And he was reading them in a voice that he imagined this fictional person to be.”
This outside perspective, from someone else who knew the real Renee, finally showed her how ridiculous the situation was.
“And then we were both laughing, because of the tone of voice and the delivery of these lines.”
Renee says she can’t take tabloid stories seriously because they just are “not a proper representation of you and how you live your life.”
“It is entertainment, and it’s funny if you look at it in the right way. You wouldn’t choose it, and you have to resign yourself to certain things that aren’t natural, and to the fact that you will not necessarily determine how you will be remembered in the world. That what someone chooses to put out there about you has nothing to do with the truth of your life [or what that means for] your grandchildren when they are asking about who you are. That kind of thing.”
Such a great sense of humor about it all! We are LOVING the returned Renee!
[Image via Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.]
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