Renée Zellweger Trekked Half A Mile In Heels To The 2020 Oscars To Feel ‘Grounded’

Oscar-winning actress Renée Zellweger recently revealed her secret to feeling grounded. In addition to two Academy Awards, the “Judy” actress has won four Golden Globe Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, and four Screen Guild Awards.

The actress bagged an Oscar for her performance as Judy in the self-titled movie. The film was a biopic of singer and movie star Judy Garland and was mainly set in the final year of the superstar’s life. Zellweger’s newest movie is a television crime series called “The Thing About Pam,” featuring Pam Hupp.

In a recent interview to promote her series, Zellweger opened up to how she managed to feel grounded despite all her accomplishments. She mentioned some rituals she did before award shows, including walking to the venue and her dislike of crowds. The 52-year-old also mentioned walking half a mile in heels in the rain to the 2020 Academy Award.

Zellweger recently appeared on “The Tonight Show” to promote her newest series, “The Thing About Pam.” The actress also talked about how she got prepared for the night she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for “Judy.”

She said, “I want to be grounded when I go in. I just want to get in touch with my family, talk to my mom and dad and my brother and do things that keep you grounded because you go in.”

The actress added that there were several things she liked doing before an award ceremony. One of them is taking a walk. “So I have a couple of rituals and things that I like to do before I go. I like to walk. I don’t like to get in the car with the long limo ride.”

The comment undoubtedly surprised host Jimmy Fallon, so Zellweger shed more light on it. The actress confirmed that she walked to the Oscars rather than using the usual limo entrance. This was a tough feat in 2020 due to the proximity of the nearest hotel room to the Academy award ceremony location.

The closest hotel was at least half a mile away, but that apparently didn’t deter the actress. The 52-year-old revealed that her shoes for that night were even higher than her choice of footwear for the interview. However, she cautioned, “I don’t recommend it. But it is a good exercise for keeping you grounded. It was rainy that night, so I was extra grounded when I got there.

Zellweger also talked about her aversion to crowds and revealed that she preferred sneaking into shows. “I don’t like getting out, and it’s all crazy and people screaming and stuff, so I sneak in,” she said. “All the people come out, and they stand, and they’re looking at the red carpet, so I come in behind all the people. Yeah, I sneak in behind all of them.”

In the interview, the actress mentioned her NBC crime drama, “The Thing About Pam.” Zellweger revealed that she had to take a log of Benadryl for her costume because she was allergic to the adhesive. The adhesive was used for the prosthetics part of the get-up.

She said, “I was so allergic to the adhesive. It was hilarious.” She apparently had to take a lot of the antihistamine to make it through a workday. Due to the visible weight difference between Zellweger and her character, the actress also had to put on a fat suit.

According to the 52-year-old, the entire process lasted “about four hours and 20 or 30 minutes.” This was at the beginning of the series production, but towards the end, Arian Titan, the prosthetic designer, narrowed it down to just below three hours.

In a previous interview with Entertainment Weekly, Zellweger mentioned that the process of getting her into the costume took so long because they wanted the idea to be accurate. She also said that she wanted to get the physical characters right to make more of an impact on the audience.

While the actress managed to make her transformation as realistic as she hoped, she also came under fire for it. The public was apparently not impressed with the studio’s decision to put her in a fat suit rather than finding a plus-sized actress for the role.

Several comments labeled the studio’s move as “damaging, fatphobic and potentially triggering to fat people.” A critic added that a fat suit was a mockery to plus-sized people regardless of who put it on and its reason.