At one point, Renée Zellweger traded scripts for law books.
In an interview on the Today show on March 7, the actress shared that while she was taking a break from acting, she sought to learn more about international law at UCLA.
"[I] went to school," Renée said. "I snuck into UCLA for a little while and did some public policy."
The actress shared that her dive into studying international law was fueled by a personal passion.
Renée gushed, "[I am] just really interested...in politics. It's one of my favorite things. I'll bore you to death at a dinner party. I really will."
"I needed to step away and kinda grow as a person, learn [some things] that were not related to work," she reflected. "I mean that's one of my favorite things about the work. You have the opportunity to learn things that you wouldn't otherwise have occasion to explore."
Renée's latest project, The Thing About Pam, premieres on March 8. The NBC crime series will take viewers through the chilling true story of Betsy Faria's murder and how Betsy's best friend, Pam Hupp, played by Renée, is suspected to have been behind it all.
During her appearance on Today, Renée explained that exploring her chilling character left her with many questions.
"It's fascinating because you keep asking yourself ‘How?'" Renée pondered. "'How it's possible when there's this mountain of evidence that people have just willfully looked past and how does that happen?' I thought it would be a really interesting thing to explore."
As far as getting into the role of Pam, the actress said that it's her character's seemingly normal behavior that is so intriguing.
"What's interesting is that she doesn't really fit the prototype of the person you would suspect of doing any wrongdoing," she said. "It's fascinating whenever you know someone's behavior deviates dramatically from what you might expect."
(E!, NBC and Peacock are all part of the NBCUniversal family)