Renée Zellweger has revealed why she took an acting break for six years.
The 55-year-old actor was asked why she took a break from working in Hollywood from 2010 to 2016 during a recent interview. While she explained that she simply “needed” the time off, she then gave a specific reason why.
“I was sick of the sound of my own voice,” she told British Vogue. “When I was working, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, listen to you. Are you sad again, Renée? Oh, is this your mad voice?” It was a regurgitation of the same emotional experiences.”
However, the Bridget Jones star said she was actually quite busy during her break from acting.
“I wrote music and studied international law. I built a house, rescued a pair of older doggies, created a partnership that led to a production company, advocated for and fundraised with a sick friend, and spent a lot of time with family and godchildren and driving across the country with the dogs,” she explained. “I got healthy.”
Zellweger confessed that if she had the opportunity to go back in time and change her decision to become an actor, she’s not sure what she’d do.
“I wondered if I would too, because I’m not sure that the way that it works now, celebrity and all of that stuff, I don’t know that that suits me,” she added.
According to the actor, “there used to be a line between celebrity and art.” But now, to her, that line “has become increasingly ambiguous.”
“And notorious and famous and known are now all the same thing. It used to be that you were known because you had done something that was worth knowing about,” Zwelleger added.
On February 14, 2025, the fourth installment of the beloved Bridget Jones franchise, starring Zellweger, will officially hit theatres in the U.S. The movies are based on the four best-selling Bridget Jones books by Helen Fielding.
The first film, Bridget Jones’s Diary, follows a 32-year-old publicity assistant (played by Zellweger) as she tries to find love and self-confidence while attempting to smoke less, drink less, and lose weight. She chaotically battles with affection for two men (portrayed by Colin Firth and Hugh Grant), before eventually ending up with Firth’s character, Mark Darcy.
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The latest sequel will be based on the 2013 book Bridget Jones’s Diary: Mad About the Boy, which follows the now-51-year-old single mother of two children as she navigates dating in an era of social media and dating apps.
The world has changed since her last hapless quests for a man and the original story follows the comic heroine as she continues to obsess over her weight, alcohol intake, and calorie count – in a world filled with new technology and new norms in her 50s.
In the book, we find that Mark has died tragically in an accident and Bridget finds herself alone. While Firth appears briefly in the trailer of the movie, it is soon explained that the character now exists only in Bridget’s memories, as she is now “a widow, with two wonderful children.”
Bridget Jones’s Diary: Mad About the Boy, will also involve a surprise return for Grant as his iconic character, Daniel Cleaver
