“Come and meet Tom Cruise”: Renée Zellweger Had To Fix One Misconception Fans Had About the Actress After Starring in Jerry Maguire
With her role as Dorothy Boyd in the romantic comedy Jerry Maguire from 1996, which starred Tom Cruise, actress Renée Zellweger shot to popularity. James L. Brooks and Cameron Crowe wrote, co-directed, and produced the film, which is reported to be based on their experiences working with Tim McDonald, a sports agent, and Leigh Steinberg.
Jerry Maguire is also reported to have drawn inspiration from a 28-page letter Jeffrey Katzenberg wrote in 1991 while working at Disney. The movie earned great reviews from both the public and critics, particularly for the acting and the screenplay. Even though she was somewhat unknown at the time, Renée Zellweger recounted how she managed to land the job opposite the star.
Renée Zellweger describes meeting Tom Cruise for the first time as ‘hilarious’
In an interview with Yahoo Movies in 2016, Renée Zellweger shared that she finds it hilarious that Tom Cruise, who was the lead star in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire, was waiting for her as she drove to give her audition for the movie because she was relatively unknown at the time, whereas Tom Cruise was an established actor.
She said,
“You walk in the room, and the whole superstar thing of this person disappears. And the truth of who he is is right there … He shakes your hand, looks you in the eye, [says] ‘Happy to meet you,’ and he is. And he’s curious about you and wants to get to know you. And it’s very easy to like him.”
The actress had once shared, as quoted in IMDB, that she wanted to be self-sufficient, to take care of herself and learn, travel, and see the world. Zellweger said,
“I wanted to be consistently challenged, and I knew I needed to be creative in some way. When I got my job in a bar and I could pay for my tuition, go on auditions and sometimes get jobs that I loved and pay my rent, I knew that I would be all right. That’s when my dreams came true, long before the telephone rang and someone said, ‘Come and meet Tom Cruise’.
She added in an interview with Vanity Fair that working on Jerry Maguire was a pivotal moment for her not just professionally, but personally.
Renée Zellweger’s shift from a minor role to a major role
In an interview with Sirius XM’s The Jess Cagle Podcast, the actress was asked about how it was for her to go from acting in a minor role to starring opposite Tom Cruise, to which she said that it was weird, adding,
“I guess…I wasn’t naive, but I wasn’t really paying attention to certain things. Which was probably helpful. I was just living on the inside of these experiences and not worrying about perception or what people would say, or I wasn’t privy to those things.”
The actress further elaborated on having people in the industry who had supported her exactly the way she needed support to establish herself in the industry. Among the other actresses who were considered for the part of Dorothy Boyd were Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Uma Thurman, Winona Ryder, and Marisa Tomei, but it was eventually Renée Zellweger who got the part.
Patricia Arquette on losing the role of Dorothy Boyd to Renée Zellweger
Actress Patricia Arquette, who has had an impressive and celebrated career, shared with Variety that she was also finalized for playing Dorothy Boyd until she messed up the reading with the actor. She said,
“Everyone was saying, ‘Oh, this is just a formality, you’re gonna read with Tom Cruise for Jerry Maguire, but this is your part, you got it. [But] I blew it.”
The actress said that, however, she feels that Zellweger was a better choice for the role and explained that she has trouble when it comes to auditioning for movies.
“I actually think she was better for it, and she was great. I’m a terrible auditioner ’cause I don’t feel like that’s finished work. I wanna build layers with the character and with that other person and pivot and change according to how my character feels about them from take to take.”
Patricia Arquette says that auditions are not where she shines.
