Actress Renee Zellweger has had an Oscar-winning career with films such as Cold Mountain, Bridget Jones’s Diary franchise, Chicago, Jerry Maguire and Nurse Betty to her credit.
For the first time since doing a cameo voice role in King of the Hill, Zellweger is playing the lead in Mike Kelley’s What/If. According to the actress, she was eager to play the role of master manipulator Anne Montgomery in the social thriller because the character is different from the vulnerable roles she has played in the past.
What/If is a social thriller that explores morality and the ripple effects of what happens when acceptable people start doing unacceptable things. The first season of the Netflix original series focuses on a mysterious woman’s lucrative, but dubious offer to a cash-strapped pair of San Francisco newlyweds.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Renee Zellweger shared, “I didn’t really think about the medium as much as the project itself. Good is good.“
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “What/If is Kelley’s tribute to the heightened ‘morality play’ thrillers from the late ‘80s and early ‘90s like Proposal, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Fatal Attraction, with the additional inspiration of Mrs. Robinson from The Graduate.”
The actress shared, “Mrs. Robinson was a really, really, pretty telling prototype. So, we went from there and of course he had suggested, well, we’ll subvert the trajectory of that character. Let’s just say you take all that power and self-loathing and instead of channeling it into alcoholism. What if she did something proactive? What if, say, she builds an empire?”
Renee Zellweger’s openness, as an actor, ended up being a tool that she used to build the character. She said, “It’s only on when it serves her. Warmth is a tool. And she’s very contained and calculated, meticulously to how she presents herself. It’s funny to consider that she’s so completely contained and tightly wound because [it’s] a part of her or a necessity for perfection.
“It was pretty clear to me who she is through my conversations with Mike and who he wants her to be. Her sense of entitlement is extraordinary. Her ambition and that everything is a tool including her sexuality, which she leads with unapologetically so uses to manipulate. So those things were necessary to tap into. And what does that look like? Well she takes up a lot of room but at the same time she has to be groomed.”
Noted The Hollywood Reporter, “Central to the premise of What/If is that the first season is a complete story, and follow-up seasons would, anthology-style, tell very different narratives. It’s a reflection of Kelley’s experience creating the ABC drama Revenge, the Count of Monte Cristo-inspired Hamptons soap opera, which had a four-season run, despite Kelley leaving the show after season two.”
The 10-episode series, What/If, is now streaming on Netflix.
– With information The Hollywood Reporter
