Exclusive: Renée Zelwegger

In an interview with Time Out Renée Zelwegger revealed that she wants to take a year off to 'become as boring as possible'.

Oct  6 2004

Renée Zelwegger revealed to Time Out that she wants to take a year off to 'become as boring as possible'. Hardly surprising when she explains that she hasn't 'slept in four years' and is currently grinding through a double round of publicity, for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and for her voice role in Shark Tale, the latest CGI animation benchmark.

Lisa Mullen reports: By her own account, she took some talking round to play Bridget a second time. 'They could have given up on me in the time that it took to come to an agreement that it was a worthwhile project,' she says. The fact that she was reportedly paid $10 million to reprise the role was neither here nor there; she doesn’t subscribe to the theory, espoused by John Cusack and other left-leaning actors, that you can alternate the big pay cheques with the worthwhile indie projects to help keep 'real' cinema afloat. 'It's what feels right. It's not about just showing up to work. It isn't a job that couples with your life – it replaces your life in many respects, for a year, and in some cases more, and it has to matter to me. Because there's a lot of valuable things that can happen in a year and you have to say 'okay, that will be second' when you make the commitment to do a film. And money? You know, to give your life away for a certain amount of money is just inconceivable to me – I’m not interested.'

Despite playing a convincing bumbling, posh English rose (with wobbly bits), she admits that when filming The Edge of Reason her Americanisms became all the more apparent to her, 'I felt loud and inappropriately direct. I felt curt and clumsy and I felt obnoxious in my straightforward way of communicating.'

Strangely, that's not how the people who met her in England remember her. In her other life as girlfriend of Jack White Stripes, she’s become a well-liked figure on the London rock scene. 'She's not a wack-job like some of them. She loves her music. And she's always at the front of gigs, enjoying herself', said one music-biz insider. But this is territory she's not willing to discuss. One mention of White and she states 'I won't talk about that' she says firmly. And she doesn’t.

And the reason for dying her hair black isn’t a fashion victim's attempt to look the rock chick part but for her latest role in' The Cinderella Man', in which she plays the wife of Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock. Zellwegger is also in talks about playing Janis Joplin in a film about her life. Nothing's fixed, despite press reports that it's a done deal. 'If it feels right, and we can do it respectfully, do a proper representation of this woman’s life – and if I’m the girl to do it – then we’ll see'.

With a career as exciting as this it doesn't look like she'll be taking that year off to become boring any time soon. Tough luck for her, great for us.

An exclusive interview with Renée Zelwegger by Lisa Mullen appeared in Time Out London October 6-13 2004. No.1781.