Renee Zellweger has a vivid memory of the moment she won an Oscar earlier this year.

"I had no way of knowing that I was going to go completely blank and the noise in the room would go white," she says.

"I remember the room was still, as though it was a freeze-frame mock-up of the theatre in gold and red, and there was this Sean Penn doll right in the middle, smiling up at me."

The star of Bridget Jones's Diary, Chicago and Cold Mountain, who was in Melbourne yesterday, is still coming to terms with what the award means and how it has affected her life.

"My life has been strange for a very long time," she says. "It's just varying degrees of strange. And after a certain point, it's so bizarre that there's no telling."

With her parents and brother along as her entourage, Zellweger will be in Sydney for the premiere of the Bridget Jones's Diary sequel, The Edge of Reason, tonight.

The first one, co-starring Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, became one of Britain's most successful films. Zellweger says audiences responded to Bridget's humanity and even males identified with her self-doubting, klutzy, calorie-counting search for true love.

"Men come up to me in the streets and say, 'I am Bridget Jones'. I think that's just the ability to relate to her vulnerability. I also think that she's so honest in how she expresses herself to a fault. For better or worse, she can't contain herself and out it comes."

As she did with the original film, Zellweger went from size 6 to 14 for the role but stressed that she did not feel the pressure to immediately regain her figure.

"I didn't hurry up and go ... 'I have to get back to Renee.' The concern was going the other way. Will Bridget show up? Will it look right by the time of the film?"

She also denies a report that she found Russell Crowe a tough co-star while filming The Cinderella Man recently.

"Working with Russell would only be tough in that he raises the bar and that's a welcome challenge. It's wonderful to watch how uncompromising he is in terms of bringing a character to life."

Renee Zellweger having more fun as a brunette
canoe.ca
October 24, 2004
HOLLYWOOD -- Blonds do not have the monopoly on fun. Renee Zellweger says she's having the time of her life as a brunette.

Zellweger, who wears a brunette wig for the Russell Crowe boxing movie The Cinderella Man, says she darkened her blond hair as a result of the experience.

"I liked my look as a brunette but what made me dye my own hair were the dark hairs on my neck," she says. "To match my own hair to the wig, we dyed the hair that would show from the edges of the wig. Finally I just dyed it all."

She insists she's not about to change her look any time soon.

"My friends pass me by. They don't recognize me, so casual strangers really don't. I can finally go into a coffee shop and order my cappuccino without anyone doing a double take. It's so liberating after these last years of intense scrutiny."

Zellweger insists she never said she was taking a year off from making movies but admits that's how things will probably play themselves out.

"I'm not aggressively seeking a new role," she says. "I'll be promoting Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason and The Cinderella Man for the next six to eight months so it's not as if I won't be working.

"I'll just not be filming a movie."

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which opens Nov. 19, reunites Zellweger with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth as rivals for Bridget's affections.

ZELLWEGER FILMED SAME-SEX KISS SCENE REPEATEDLY
contactmusic.com
October 24, 2004

RENEE ZELLWEGER needed eight takes to get an on-screen kiss with actress JACINDA BARRETT right for her latest movie.

The Hollywood star was filming the scene for sequel BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON, when nerves got the better of her and she needed to repeat the smooching scene with her Australian co-star.

A source says, "They were very nervous about sharing their first kiss, but they were total professionals.

"They also received a lot of support from the crew - most of whom were male and most of whom grew more and more supportive as the take count climbed ever higher."

Renee's weighty issue
entertainment.news.com.au
October 24, 2004


OSCAR-WINNER Renee Zellweger has described as "sad" the focus on her weight loss after playing the title role in two Bridget Jones films.
The Texas-born actress, who is due to arrive in Australia tomorrow, put on about 10kg for each of her Bridget Jones movies.

She said constant questions about her weight had become an "obsession".

"It makes me so sad, because I think it says so much about what we value in society," Zellweger, 35, said in Los Angeles.

"It suggests that one way of existing in the world is correct and that the other isn't valuable - and I think that's completely invalid.

"Honestly, I really do get such positive responses from the fellows in my life while I look like Bridget Jones. I think that completely nullifies the idea for the paradigms for beauty that we have in this decade.

"I don't understand it. I really don't, because I didn't find that I was less happy. It was very exciting to be able to fill out those dresses.

"Unfortunately, they're temporary assets, so to speak."

Zellweger, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress opposite Nicole Kidman in Cold Mountain, arrives in Australia tomorrow and will appear on Rove Live on Tuesday.

Zellweger arrives in Sydney on Thursday for the world premiere of Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason.

The actress is travelling with her father, Emil, mother, Kjellfrid, and younger brother, Drew.

They will visit Australian-based members of their family. Emil Zellweger lived in Australia as a young man and was a Cronulla lifesaver.

Renee Zellweger still mourning the death of her beloved dog!
newkerala.com
October 11, 2004

London: Film actress Renee Zellweger has still not gotten over the death of her pet dog Dylan, even 11 months after her death, and is still mourning her beloved pooch's loss.

The 'Bridget Jones Diary' star was devastated when the 15-year- old Dylan passed away last November, and is shocked at people's suggestions that she should get a new dog as a replacement.

"Give it a year and another year and you don't cry every day. I feel like I've been a mum for 15 years. I have had my dog for 15 years and my life revolved around her," femalefirst quoted Renee as saying.

"I could never replace Dylan. That would be like, 'I'm sorry your daughter died. Do you have a new one?'

That's just the nature of the relationship. I'm not saying that everybody is so lucky, but I was that lucky to have that kind of dog and that kind of relationship with her," she added.

ZELLWEGER 'STILL WITH WHITE'
sfgate.com
October 8, 2004

Renee Zellweger has rubbished reports she has split with White Stripes frontman Jack White.

The "Bridget Jones" actress has dated White ever since she met him on the set of epic movie "Cold Mountain" in 2002.

Zellweger was recently quoted in British newspaper The Sun as saying, "There's nobody else in my life right now. I'm just not interested at the moment. You know, I'm always on a set or on a plane."

However, her representative now insists the couple "is fine" and the quote doesn't imply she is now single.

British people make Renee Zellweger feel clumsy
chron.com
Oct. 6, 2004

LONDON -- Bridget Jones star Renee Zellweger says that being around British people makes her feel "curt and clumsy."
Zellweger

In an interview with London's Time Out magazine, the Oscar-winning actress -- who lived in London while filming the hit 2001 comedy Bridget Jones's Diary and its sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason -- also revealed that she plans to take a year off from movies to spend time with friends.

"What did become apparent to me when I was living in England were my Americanisms," the 35-year-old star said in the interview, published Tuesday. "I felt that so strongly. I felt loud and inappropriately direct.

"I felt curt and clumsy and I felt obnoxious in my straightforward way of communicating."

Zellweger said she had been reluctant to do a Bridget Jones sequel, fearing it was simply a moneymaking venture. "(But) I came to understand as we began to talk about it that it wasn't that at all."

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, also starring Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, opens next month.

Renee's coffee break
smh.com.au
October 6, 2004

Bridget Jones's Diary star Renee Zellweger says she is taking a year out from movies to spend more time "drinking coffee with my friends," reports Ananova.com.

The 35-year-old actress says she needs a complete break after finishing filming of the Bridget Jones sequel The Edge of Reason.

She says that even a reported $US11 million ($15.21 million) payday for reprising her role as the 30-something disaster-in-love couldn't stop her from pining for a normal life.

"The work is all-encompassing and there are so many things that you are not allowed in your life, because of it," said Zellweger, who had to pile on the kilos again for the film. "Conventional friendships, unconditional friendships. I'd like to have coffee every day with my friends.

"I envy my friends who have that," she continued. "So I'm stopping; I'm not really considering anything until this time next year."

Meanwhile, Zellweger's on-again, off-again relationship with White Stripes rocker Jack White seems to be off - again.

"There's nobody else in my life right now," Zellweger tells the London Sun . "I'm just not interested at the moment. You know, I'm always on a set or on a plane, but we'll see."

The Oscar winner does cop to one crush: "I really like Paul McCartney," she says of the very married ex-Beatle, tongue firmly in cheek. "I haven't told him yet but I think some friends of mine have."

Zellweger, an Oscar nominee for Bridget Jones's Diary and Chicago, took home an Academy Award earlier this year for best supporting actress for Cold Mountain.