Judy trailer: Renee Zellweger sets her sights on Oscar in first look at new biopic
The film should position Zellweger as a major contender in next year's Oscar race
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Your support makes all the difference.Renee Zellweger looks set to return to the Oscar fold 15 years after her award-winning performance in Cold Mountain, if the first full-length trailer for her forthcoming Judy Garland film is anything to go by.
Set in 1968, Judy sees Garland arriving in London for a string of sold-out dates at the Talk of the Town concert hall, but struggling with her declining health, weakened voice and the absence of her young family, who remained in Los Angeles. Her London concerts marked some of her last public performances, Garland dying of a barbiturates overdose in 1969.
It is the finest showcase for the Oscar-winning Zellweger in many years, with the star stepping back from the limelight for five years before returning in 2016 for comedy sequel Bridget Jones’s Baby. She most recently appeared on the Netflix thriller series What/If.
Zellweger, who recorded her own interpretations of Garland’s songs for the film, spent two hours a day transforming into the star, with prosthetics added to her face to capture the Judy “look”, along with contact lenses and wigs. Jessie Buckley, Finn Wittrock and Rufus Sewell also star in the film.
“What [Garland] had to overcome in a time when women didn’t necessarily feel that they had power over their own lives in the way that we do today,” Zellweger told People Magazine in May. “That stayed with me and I hope folks will be moved by that as well.”
Judy arrives in UK cinemas 4 October 2019.
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