In February, Bridget Jones and the actress who portrays her, Renée Zellweger, will return to theaters for the fourth time in the iconic role. The Oscar-winning actress has been seen in films and TV series in recent years, but before 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, she disappeared from the big screen for more than half a decade. Now, she revealed that her break was due to her voice.
As one of the most popular actresses of the turn of the millennium, Zellweger still appeared in several films in 2009 (Why Did I Get Married?, My One and Only, My Own Love Song, Monsters vs. Aliens), but by 2010, only one dramedy, My Own Love Song, came out, which didn’t attract much attention and wasn’t even shown in Hungarian theaters. After that, it took six years for her to appear on the big screen again in the third Bridget Jones film, where Colin Firth and Hugh Grant joined her, and of course, the veteran heartthrobs will return for the fourth film as well.
In a recent conversation, Grant asked Zellweger about the reason for her six-year hiatus, and she responded, “I needed it. I was tired of hearing my own voice. When I was working, all I could think was, ‘Oh my god, are you sad again, Renée? Or is that your angry voice?’ I kept regurgitating the same emotional experiences.” The actress, however, didn’t just sit idle between 2010 and 2016. She played music, studied international law, and focused on her personal life:
“I built a house, took in some old shelter dogs, started a collaboration that led to founding a production company, supported a sick friend, and spent a lot of time with my family, my godchildren, and crossed the country with my dogs. I became healthy.”
Grant also asked Zellweger whether she ever keeps track of her films’ performance, but the actress assured her colleague that she has never looked at box office numbers and has never checked Rotten Tomatoes. Bridget Jones: Mad About You will arrive in Hungarian theaters on February 13, but Zellweger won’t need to worry about U.S. box office numbers, as it will be released only via streaming on Peacock in the U.S.
