The Real Renée

Rosamund Dean | Red Magazine – October 2016

© Brian Bowen Smith

When interviewing a Red cover star, I’m usually summoned to a bland luxurious hotel; somewhere quiet, discreet and eye-wateringly expensive. But Renée Zellweger, who’s in London recording additional dialogue for the new Bridget Jones film, wants to meet in the Soho branch of Bill’s. Yes, Bill’s: the cheap-and-cheerful, child-friendly chain restaurant where you or I might go for a relaxed brunch. Not the sort of place in which you’d expect to find a Hollywood star.

But the warm, noisy, unpretentious surroundings suit Zellweger perfectly. I have to remind myself I am not, in fact, hanging out with Bridget Jones, particularly since she speaks in a British accent throughout our entire encounter. “Hello,” she smiles brightly, sounding exactly like Bridget, “lovely to meet you.” Dressed inconspicuously, in a grey zip-up hoodie and endearingly unfashionable black Brooks Cascadia trainers, she wears a burnt orange baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her blonde hair spilling out underneath. Nobody in Bill’s bats an eyelid.

As she takes a seat, I ask if she keeps the accent up all the time. “Oh yes,” she nods, “since we started filming last year.” I gasp. Really?

“No!” Her face crinkles into that distinctive Zellweger grin. “But Sharon [Maguire, the film’s director] told me to keep it up while I’m here.” Obviously, I love the fact that she’s making fun of me already.

Bridget Jones’s Baby arrives this month, 15 years after the smash hit Bridget Jones’s Diary, and 12 years since the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason. I loved those films. With her hopes and fears and propensity for drinking too much and saying the wrong thing, Bridget was every woman. She was us, and we were Bridget. And so, I’m pleased to report, is Zellweger. Now 47, she is open, self-deprecating and quite hilarious.

“Is it martini o’clock?” she asks, with a laugh. But, when the waiter comes over, she concedes, “I’m not that exciting. Any more.” She orders an apple, carrot and ginger juice then adds, wistfully, “There was a time.”

She tells me the Bridget of the new film is “older, slightly wiser” and, like the actress who has become synonymous with her, I guess now might also choose a juice over a martini on a Tuesday afternoon. “She’s less naïve, more professionally accomplished,” Zellweger continues. “But still has her charms and her idiosyncrasies.”

Still has her foibles, I suggest. “Of course,” she grins, “don’t we all?” Her favourite thing about Bridget is “she always survives it. Whatever it is. Gives us hope”.

And Zellweger is certainly a survivor. We’ve all had bad relationships and work disasters. The difference is she’s in the public eye where things must appear golden. One of the most interesting women in Hollywood, she rarely gives interviews, because “if you’re going to talk about yourself for an hour then you’re bound to say something stupid, you just are”.

Having struggled with fame, she says she is finally getting better at it. “Not good at it,” she stresses, “I don’t think I’ll ever be good at being a public person, because there’s nothing natural about it. But I’m getting better. And my girlfriends have a lot to do with that because we can laugh at it.”

Female friendship is vital to Zellweger. “I depend on my little group of girlfriends,” she nods, “all of them different, and brilliant. We get together and watch (Beyoncé’s visual album) Lemonade, and subsequently email a million Lemonade jokes. And mantras.”

The next five minutes of our conversation descend into a Beyoncé love-in (Zellweger deems her “a remarkable human being”). She sums it up with: “Well, we’ve got Beyoncé, so things aren’t all bad.”

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED SINCE WE FIRST MET BRIDGET JONES. Now single women in their thirties are less likely to sit around worrying about finding a man, and this shift in attitude is reflected in the new film. “There are conversations about ageism and independence and evolving with the times,” nods Zellweger. As the title suggests, this time Bridget is pregnant. The twist is the father could be one of two men (not such a bad problem to have when it’s Patrick Dempsey or Colin Firth). She also has a new thirtysomething friend, played by Red favourite Sarah Solemani, who couldn’t care less about Mr Right.

“Renée is rock ’n’ roll,” Solemani tells me over email. “She really doesn’t give a shit, and she’s wickedly funny. When she found out I had a child, she looked me up and down in my bra and denim hotpants, raised an eyebrow and just said ‘slut’. We laughed into the take.”

Having watched the film, I can assure you it’s exactly what you’re hoping: smart, sweary, and very funny.

ZELLWEGER’S BREAKOUT ROLE WAS JERRY MAGUIRE, in which she made “you had me at ‘hello’” one of the most iconic lines of all time. When I mention it’s been 20 years, her eyes widen. “20 years? Since Jerry Maguire? No. Let’s do the math again. It can’t be right!”

What advice would she give herself then, knowing what she knows now. “Don’t lose this,” she says, firmly. “Don’t lose this joy, this gratitude, this enthusiasm. Keep having fun. Because, when it starts to feel like less of a discovery and more of a responsibility, it gets challenging.”

That’s when the pressure starts?

“Maybe,” she says, “but that’s my fault. I did that.”

Her career has seen extraordinary highs (an Oscar for Cold Mountain, two more nominations for Bridget Jones’s Diary and Chicago) but, after a run of films that didn’t perform as expected, she took some time out in 2010. “I needed to stop. It was time,” she says, adding she’s lucky to be financially secure enough to do so. “I’m a working girl, but I did save so that, when it was time for me to take a minute, I could.”

A minute turned into five years, during which “I did the things I used to do if I had time. I visited my parents. I spent time with my brother and his children. I made a home for myself. I fell in love with somebody.”

Ah yes, love. Zellweger is a hopeless romantic. She was previously engaged to Jim Carrey and briefly married to singer Kenny Chesney. But, for the last four years, she’s been happily in a relationship with blues musician Doyle Bramhall II. They have known each other since meeting at university in Austin, Texas in 1990.

The day before we meet, I read in a US magazine that they’re engaged. “I read that too! Isn’t it exciting? I wonder what I’ll wear.” She fixes me with a mock-quizzical expression: “Did it say when I’m getting married?”

So it’s not true? “No. Somebody made that up. Who do you think it was?” Well, according to the story, a ‘friend’ of yours… “Oh, that friend. That friend gets around, they talk a lot.” She rolls her eyes. “Somebody actually sits in a room and comes up with these things: ‘This week she’s too fat to be loved. This week she’s too skinny to be loved.’ What are you going to do? Everyone has fat days and, if you can’t be loved on them, then whatever.”