My Fair Lady

 

By Emma Cochrane, Empire - May 2001

 

Living in London (5 mths). Learning an accent (ugh). Conquering the critics (v.g.). Renée Zellweger takes Empire exclusively through Bridget Jones's Diary...

 

Mark, long-term driver to the stars, is sitting in the reception of Working Title Films in London waiting for Renée Zellweger. She's holed up in Notting Hill executive producer Eric Fellner's office talking about her latest film, Bridget Jones's Diary, while outside Mark runs through the list of Hollywood actors he considers worthwhile. Uma, for instance, was lovely, invited him around to visit the day after she'd had her baby; Bill (as in Murray), a top bloke, who not only invited Mark out to his house, but also greeted him at the airport - complete with embarrassing hand-written sign. And then, there's Renée, who he's had the pleasure of knowing since she landed the role of the UK's premiere '90s diarist last year, and she's a whole other level of nice. They're off to Kensington next, to the swanky movie star hang-out of Boots. "She just loves Boots," explains Mark.

 

As Mark is chatting, a blonde wanders past and greets Empire with the words, "Hi, I’m hungry. I’m going to get a biscuit. Do you want a biscuit? Well, I’m getting you one anyway." She marches off down the corridor, pony-tailed hair swinging, and returns minutes later with a bowl of Fruitibix cereal. "This was all I could find... I guessed you wouldn't want it..." She's 5' 5 ", of slim build, wearing blue jeans and a blue sweater, and it takes a moment to realise that this unassuming beauty, conducting an interview between mouthfuls of cereal, is Renée Zellweger. The same Renée Zellweger that stole Tom Cruise's heart in Jerry Maguire (1996), got chopped up by Tim Roth in Deceiver (1997), cried with Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998) and, more recently, picked up a Golden Globe for her performance as Nurse Betty.

 

Thinking this is going to be a breeze, Empire starts with some basic biographical facts and straightaway hits a stumbling block. "What's your middle name?" "Ur-uh," she shakes her head, mouth still full. "I don't know you well enough to tell you." And this is what lies at the heart of Zellweger: she can offer to feed you, she'll happily sing the praises of Empire and she can even hug you (as she does at the end of the interview), but certain things are sacred; and that's what makes her interesting.

 

Cameron Crowe was well aware of this. He took a freeze-frame of Tom Cruise's reaction to Zellweger during one of the early Jerry Maguire rehearsals that summed it up perfectly. "Intrigue and bewilderment," laughs Zellweger, who still has the photo at home. "It was pinned to my refrigerator, but now I keep it in a more special place." After she wrapped Jerry Maguire, Cruise promised that if ever she needed anything, all she had to do was call. She hasn't picked up the phone yet, "but I know he's there", she smiles. "He's such an angel. I can't say enough nice things about him - not as an actor trying to make your friend look good, but true, nice things. He's a good man."

 

Houston-born Zellweger began her acting career by default. She joined the drama club aged 11 because her older brother Drew was already a member "and I had to do everything he did". Drew gave up after high school and became a marketing executive, but Zellweger remained drawn to acting, even after taking a degree in English at the University Of Texas, and at 21 she landed her first job: a commercial for the American Beef Council. "It was meant to be a turn-of-the-century picnic at a girls' school." So there was the then-vegetarian Zellweger, kitted out in a beret, skirt and jumper in the 100° heat of Texas, trying to sell beef to the good people of Japan. "And I loved it. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever done, and I loved the day. I loved the process of creating, the whole thing."

 

In the early days she shared an agent with fellow Texan Matthew McConaughey, and they were often sent up for the same things - hence the early dual career joys of The Return Of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994) and Dazed And Confused (1993) - but eventually she moved out to the West Coast with her dog Dylan, and bigger offers started to come her way. The one thing she did avoid was the press circuit that went hand-in-hand with publicising these movies. "There's a couple of times when I wished I’d gone out and talked more about films we've done, but because I’m so puritanical about letting my work speak for itself, that would sometimes get in the way in terms of being able to share it with people." So for the record, she'd now like to recommend: Love And A 45 (1994), a Tarantino-esque road movie; The Whole Wide World (1996), the true-life tale of aspiring writer Novalyne Price, whose romance with Conan The Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard was a scandal in its time; and Price Of Rubies ( 1998), in which she romanced Hassidic Jew Christopher Eccleston. "Now I feel really bad," she reflects. "I didn't really do anything for Jerry Maguire or One True Thing. But you know what? I decided Nurse Betty is a little film that everybody worked so hard on, that I wanted to say, 'Look what we did.'" And look they did, which is why Zellweger is here today: to talk about her latest, Bridget Jones's Diary.

 

Zellweger is all too aware of every piece that has been written about her as Bridget Jones, because for three months it was her job to cut out and file every column inch that appeared about the movie. Some bright spark - read, sadist - thought it would be a 'really good idea' to give Zellweger a job in the press office at Macmillan - the publisher that owns the rights to Bridget Jones's Diary - since our diarist has this very job. So, under the name Bridget Cavendish, and using her rapidly improving Sloaney accent, Zellweger went to work from nine to five every day, and learnt about a world she'd previously avoided "because it shouldn't be floating around your head".

 

"You bave to make little notes on the clippings," she recalls, "so I’d be like, 'Not true', 'Complete crap', 'Absolutely not', 'Check your sources'..."

 

But that wasn't all. "I was working four jobs. I was doing the body job, the dialogue job, the go-to-rehearsals-and-learn-your-lines job and the Macmillan job. Then by the time I got home there was more work to do, like watching EastEnders so I would know what people were talking about. There was no time to make friends so it was very lonely. And very lonely to be not familiar with any part of yourself."

 

The "body job" was the one that attracted the most attention. For the naturally slim and active Zellweger, adding two stone to her body weight was no mean feat. The idea wasn't to make her fat, just to bring her closer to the nine-stone mark of the novel's heroine. "It was mathematical," she explains. "You go to the doctor and he looks at you and weighs you, and he does these doodles on a piece of paper and says, 'Do you wanna add this or do you wanna add that? Well, if you want to add that, add two eggs to your breakfast and a protein chocolate ice cream shake an hour after that, then a candy bar before lunch. Eat an entire pizza at lunch, plus a salad with Thousand Island dressing on it and a chocolate shake, a piece of pie for dessert and right after that, in the afternoon, I want you to have another protein weight-gain shake, and another candy bar, and then I need you to eat a piece of cake at tea. Then I need you to have linguini with white clam sauce and extra Parmesan, with as much bread and butter as you can stuff down with every one of those meals. And have some wine. Or some Guinness, because that will do it. Then some dessert and then before you go to bed...' So imagine that," she continues, "because there's no sleeping. You're on your eighth coffee because you have to stay awake and get through whatever, and then they bring in the chocolate whipped mousse... You've shot all night long and you're really tired, and you'd love to get five hours' sleep but you can only get three because you have to get up and learn your lines. You do what you have to do to legitimise the character you're playing."

 

For the record, all the food, all the accent work, all the absorbing British culture has worked. On screen it takes just seconds to forget that Zellweger is, as Eric Fellner rightly surmises, "this Texan chick". Inevitably, though, some fans' favourite scenes have not made the final cut. "We shot a lot," explains Zellweger, "but you can't make people sit in their chair for five hours. I especially miss a New Year's Eve party because it was hysterical to shoot."

 

Which leads us neatly to Zellweger's main bone of contention with the film - the "stinky poo cigarettes" that Bridget chain-smokes. Zellweger is a non-smoker, and in fact wasn't allowed to smoke real cigarettes because they speed up the metabolism - undoing all that hard-won weight gain. So they gave her herbal ones.

 

"They were so offensive. We were filming a scene in the Tate Modern, there were hundred of extras, and that was all fine until I lit up my stinky-poo cigarette and the whole room turned to figure out where the smell was coming from."

 

Other things she'd like to destroy include "that red diary and that stupid pen". Although she didn't have to write all the diaries (over 100 were eventually used), she did have to provide numerous samples of her handwriting and fill in anything that was to be seen on screen. "As for my bunny costume," she says of her memorable attire during a particularly embarrassing party scene, "I wanted to throw it in the Thames by the time we were done..."

 

But, with the print finally in the can, Zellweger is free to enjoy herself - and she is indeed heading to Boots. "I’m addicted," she confesses, "I love Boots. We've got great pharmacies in America, but boy, there's something about Boots The Chemist you can't beat." Spoken like a true Bridget Jones. 

 

BRIDGET JONES SAVED MY LIFE

 

First there was Shirley Valentine, tapping into my morbid fear of becoming a shaggy-permed Liverpudlian housewife who talks to the wall. Thankfully Pauline Collins broke out of her potato-peeling rut, and I've carried her story in my heart both as cautionary tale and inspirational mantra since 1989.

 

But then along comes Bridget Jones. I could have merely chortled and over-identified like everyone else, but with only three letters separating us and the fact that we both havea mother called Pamela, some brow-scrunching reading between the (paranoia-affirming) lines seemed to be called for.

 

In between the pages of Fielding's beautifully observed satire, there's a wonderful sense of 'I can't believe she said that - I do that/think that/pluck that!' I marvel at the women sloshing down the Chardonnay in their eagerness to be the 'authentic' Bridget Jones, but there is much more to Bridget than a caricature of turn-of-the-century new womanhood. She is as instructive as a role model can be - the one thing she's taught me is that life's too short to count calories/ciggies/cellulite nodules (yup, Bridget Jones's Diary is the most cunningly-disguised self-help book on the market!). But until worldwide realisation dawns, there's the movie. And of course there'll be a stampede for seats - it's not every day you get to go to the movies and see yourself on the big screen. Belinda Jones 

 

BRIDGET JONES RUINED MY LIFE

 

The thing about a diary is that it holds secrets. Which is why all men should sneak a look at Bridget Jones's Diary (or at least, see the film - it's only 90 minutes).

 

Women have always felt the answers to the world's ills – or at least, an ailing relationship - can befound between the covers of a book (men just think it's between the covers). They'll devour the trendy theories just so that, during a row, they can throw it back at you. Preferably in hardback. Therefore, when girlfriends began chucking a volume by Independent columnist Helen Fielding at hapless boyfriends, it was time for said blokes to pick up the pieces, turnover a new page and... empathise. So you look inside Bridget Jones's Diary - any format - and what do you find? That for all the modern trappings – trendy job, loose morals - the old, old clichés still apply: all men are bastards. Except one. You see, the appeal of Bridget Jones is simple. It's not: 'She's just like me, underappreciated, misunderstood, (ever-so-slightly) overweight.' It's: 'She's just like me, underappreciated, misunderstood, (ever-so-slightly) overweight... and she lands her dream guy. No, she has two gorgeous guys fighting over her!' Ladies, be fair. How can we compete with Mark Darcy? He's not just a fictional character, he's a fictional spin on a fictiona Jane Austen character. He. Does. Not. Exist. But try telling your girlfriend and she’ll throw the book at you. Colin Kennedy

 

WHO THE HELL IS SHARON MAGUIRE?

 

A quick flick through Helen Fielding's acknowledgements in Bridget Jones's Diary and the name Sharon Maguire is innocuous enough amongst the litany of thank yous. Yet five years after the book's release, Maguire is directing the movie version of the very sartie book. If this was not exactly nepotism - she's a respected documentary and commercials filmmaker - her claim for the director's chair was helped by the fact that she was the real-life inspiration for Bridget's mates Shazzer (told you so) and Jude. "We were having a really good time, going out partying," reflects Maguire. "At the same time, we were anxious about why we hadn't settled down yet. Bet we felt we shouldn't be striving for male approval because we're feminists. That contradiction was the thing Helen so brilliantly captured. There are a lot of women out there who've got their careers, their independence - but they're constantly thinking, 'I just want to be in love, I want a man...'" Which insight made her the ideal candidate to capture her on screen. "I knew the world so well," she laughs, "because it's mine." Ian Freer