An Oscar winner will take on an icon.
According to Deadline, Cold Mountain actress Renée Zellweger will portray Judy Garland in a film about the deceased star's final concerts before her tragic death at age 47 due to an accidental overdose.
Titled Judy, the new movie will follow the Wizard of Oz star through her last performances in London, 30 years after she portrayed Dorothy Gale from Kansas in the famous movie musical. Like The Wizard of Oz, this biopic will also have musical moments, with Zellweger, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Chicago, performing some of Garland's most famous numbers.
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Though Garland's last shows were sold out, Deadline reports that the film will show how the actress, who worked almost her entire life, was particularly exhausted and burnt-out by the time she hit the London stage.
Zellweger herself knows what it's like to want a break from the spotlight. In fact, she took one. After starring in almost 20 films between 2000 and 2010, the Bridget Jones' Diary star told the Vogue U.K. that she made an active decision to step away from the spotlight.
"[I] was fatigued and wasn't taking the time I needed to recover between projects, and it caught up with me," Zellweger told the outlet at the time. "I got sick of the sound of my own voice...It was time to go away and grow up a bit."
Zellweger told Vogue U.K. that the break made it easier to connect with the people around her without worrying so much about her celebrity status.
"I found anonymity, so I could have exchanges with people on a human level and be seen and heard, not be defined by this image that precedes me when I walk into a room."
It sounds like Zellweger will easily be able to find empathy for this silver screen legend, making her performance in Judy one we're eager to watch.
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