Whatever Happened To '90s Star Rene Russo?

From posing for Vogue to starring in films like "Get Shorty" and "The Thomas Crown Affair," once upon a time, Rene Russo was a household name. However, she slowed down in a big way around the mid-aughts — and that was by her own design. 

Russo was booked and busy from the time she was a teenager, and like we said, even before she went into acting, she'd done a number of covers for Vogue. Of course, she ultimately did go into acting in the late '80s, and from then until 2005, she churned out a ton of projects. However, she slowed down after the remake of "Yours, Mine & Ours" ... which earned five Stinker Award nominations. A massive movie flop would give anyone pause, and in a 2017 interview with Build Series, Russo acknowledged that the jobs available to her prompted a hiatus. "I took a long time off and just gardened, because I just, you know, there are other things that I love, and there weren't that many great roles," she said. Russo added that she decided to do her own thing until something good did come along. 

It's worth noting that Russo has spoken about actively choosing to do what made her happy in other interviews, too. In 2014, she told Shock Ya! that after getting her start so young, she'd never really had an opportunity to slow down. "There was never any time," she said of the fact that she was in back-to-back projects for years. Granted, she acknowledged that some people were fine doing just that, but she explained, "For me there were other things that I wanted to do. At a certain point I had to ask myself, 'Well Renee, if you don't do them, what? Are you just going to keep doing one movie, after another, after another?" Fair enough!

Despite essentially disappearing from Hollywood for a few years, Rene Russo kept busy during her time off, and she told Shock Ya! that in addition to gardening, she'd established a dairy business. She did eventually return to acting, though even that is on the proviso that she really connects with the roles offered to her. 

In her interview with Shock Ya!, Russo got candid about not exactly loving every aspect of working on a film. "I don't like getting up at 4:30 in the morning. I don't like it," she admitted, before quipping that she probably sounded ungrateful and that she really did love acting. Even so, she continued, "Unless it's something that I feel I can share my feelings or my emotions so that I can be a reflection for other people ... then it's just not fun for me." 

Now, it is worth noting that even when Russo does connect with a character, she does also have some stipulations. For one, as she laughingly recounted during her appearance on Build Series, anything filmed in a hot location presents problems for her. Speaking of "Just Getting Started" being shot in Arizona, Russo recalled telling the film's director, Ron Shelton, "I have no internal cooling system. I didn't have it in my 20s, and now, if it's not 78 with a breeze, anything over that, I will pass out." That may sound like an exaggeration, but Russo added that she actually had fainted while shooting the 2002 film "Big Trouble" in Miami. Thankfully, Shelton got her an ice truck, and she laughed that the weather ended up being unseasonably cool during filming. Russo may be back, but she's certainly not about to sacrifice her health for a role, and TBH, we kind of dig the honesty.