Bridget Jones’s Baby doesn’t come out until September, so it’s a little bit early for Renee Zellweger’s promotional tour. Still, here she is on the July cover of Vogue UK, trying to look sort of cutesy and like the old Renee. While I do think that Renee’s plastic surgery has “settled” over the past year, she still looks pretty different. And it’s really weird that even Vogue UK can’t address the very noticeable changes with her face directly. I mean, maybe they did ask her about it and they just didn’t excerpt that part yet, but I don’t think so. I think Renee just didn’t want to talk about it and so Vogue didn’t even go there. Here’s what Renee did discuss:
Taking a break from Hollywood: “I found anonymity, so I could have exchanges with people on a human level and be seen and heard, not be defined by this image that precedes me when I walk into a room. You cannot be a good storyteller if you don’t have life experiences, and you can’t relate to people.”
She says she said no to big projects: “As a creative person, saying no to that wonderful once-in-a-lifetime project is hard. But I was fatigued and wasn’t taking the time I needed to recover between projects, and it caught up with me. I got sick of the sound of my own voice: it was time to go away and grow up a bit.”
Playing Bridget Jones again: “I put on a few pounds. I also put on some breasts and a baby bump. Bridget is a perfectly normal weight and I’ve never understood why it matters so much. No male actor would get such scrutiny if he did the same thing for a role.”
As always, I think Renee is being too cute by half. And it kills me, because I always liked Renee! She’s a wonderful actress and I believe she’s smarter than this. The reason people made a big deal about her weight gain for Bridget Jones is because Miramax (at the time) made a HUGE deal about it. Everyone wanted to make sure that Renee LOOKED like Bridget. And the weight gain was part of the promotional campaigns for the films. As for Renee purposefully saying no to big projects because she was “fatigued” and sick of her own voice… possibly. But is that what really happened? I have no idea. I tend to believe the parts dried up for Renee around her 40th birthday, but sure, I’ll also believe that she said no to some stuff for various personal reasons. For real question: was Renee always this squirrelly?
Photos courtesy of Vogue UK.
Her face was so charming and unique before. Now she looks like every other blonde fortysomething actress in Hollywood.
Honestly I don’t even recognize her. Her face is SO different, it’s like looking at a different person.
Totally and in more that gets old her
It truly is!
I imagine it’s got to be incredibly difficult for women to age in Hollywood and I feel for them.
As I age, I’m increasingly anxious about having photos taken because I’m usually aghast when I see the pic!
I feel like Meryl Streep in “It’s Complicated” in the scene where she’s high on pot looking in a mirror saying, “Is that what I look like?!” Before groaning in angst.
LOL
So, while I can’t bash actresses for turning to plastic surgery, it’s unfortunate for most the results.
Jennifer Lopez MUST share STAT the name of her surgeon and what she’s done.
Because she gets more beautiful with age and there’s no way it’s not due to some incredibly talented surgeon.
For her to assume people online have no life is belittling and douchey. Try addressing the elephant in the room dear 😉
I’m not sure what you mean, Kate Kack.
Where did you read that she assumes that?
Not being snarky…just wondering so I can read it.
I actually think she was taking about the “celebrity” part of the business.. That there is a perception of you and that is what people think of when they meet you. I think she is making a generalization that is not entirely true. Many actors that are more famous than she is manage to have very private lives outside the spotlight. I’m sure they have connections and experiences that are real and genuine. It takes work for sure; but it can be done.
The weight gain in the original movie wasn’t that big of a deal until she stepped on a red carpet for the press tour and it was quite clear that she’d lost a HUGE amount of weight and fronting the new low weight as her natural weight.
Also she was dating Jim Carrey during the filming of movie one who was rumoured to hate her bigger body and that’s why she shed too much weight after filming wrapped.
Prior to BJ, she was a normal sized actress as seen in JERRY MAGUIRE and NURSE BETTY. She wasn’t super slender.
Rocking up on the red carpet several sizes smaller yhan her natural weight did wonders gor her fashion credentials. All the houses clamoured to dress her. Again, something that hadn’t happened before that red carpet.
After that, her weight became a thing to extent that she was paid extra to gain it back for BJ 2. And she was skeletal for a good few years except when fioming BJ.
That whole decade was messed up as far as her weight. Taking a break from Hollywood was a good thing for her because surgery or not, she looks relaxed and her weight has settled to a more natural balance.
Thanks for coming with the receipts
I thought that was j white
She was definitely dating Jim Carrey when the weight shenanigans happened and after they broke up she moved on to Jack White, a man who only dates models……
Clearly not a good influence on poor RZ.
Jack has only dated one model, karen elson, whom he married and she’s not exactly the stereotypical model. She’s also a musician. I would say his type is musicians rather than models,before renee he was dating musicians and now he is dating another female musician. Maybe renee should have stopped acting and become a recording artist. Only half joking. Literally everyone thinks renees sudden weight loss is jacks fault, even in his fandom.
That’s the best photo they could get of her for the cover?
She made a film with a French director ( La Vie En Rose’s director) .He explained that his 2 last movies are a nightmare because of the producers and another time because of the messy and instable casting
I think that the projects she pick after the Cold Mountain, Nurse Betty, Chicago run is what killed her career. Also, not performing at the Academy Awards when the song was nominated I believe left a bad taste in some studios mouths. Her reasoning was bogus.
whatever. she got her creative juices going and came back to play a role she’s played twice before?
I don’t deny hollywood is sexist when it comes to looks…….yet I also don’t like comments that exaggerate things. Yes a big deal was made of her Bridget weight gain (and then loss after filming). Yet I don’t agree that women only get discuses. Several men have gained weight / lost weight for film purposes and I also recall a fair amount of dialogue about same, (Matthew McC., Russell Crow, ADrian Brody for example). It’s the transformation that gets discussed — and not solely on the basis of the sex of the actor,
It’s sad – her squinty look was part of her appeal. She WAS different and now she’s bland.
She still has small eyes. You and I don’t have to wake up every morning to eyelids probably at her age drooping into her line of vision, getting progressively worse every year. She probably just does a little botox to lift the droopy eyelids up just a little. But she’s so squinty it changes it a bit.
I also think her new look, dirty blonde hair, very tan at times like below in the link, ungroomed eyebrows changes her look also. I loved her shinier blonde hair and paler skin and darker and/or more groomed eyebrows.
But in her Ellen interview, she still looks like Renee to me in person compared to still photographs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO2U-EbMteY
I get botox for migraines and it does NOT lift the eyelids–it pulls them down which is problematic for me and causes me to have droopy eyelids when I don’t without it.
I love Renee and totally get her wanting to be anonymous. Being famous would be horrible, not having any privacy, etc. Look how hard it is for civilian women to age. So ridiculous, our culture.
Yes it does lift the eyes when done by a plastic surgeon for cosmetic purposes. I botox just for this reason
Renee worked nonstop for so many years. Her career was her life, always off on location. During that, she had some relationships that didn’t work out. I think she accomplished a lot, and a man came into her life that she loved and was happy, and she wanted to live a different life for a few years, focused more on her personal life, not always off away on set. She earned that right to shift priorities.
What she said in the first comment seems important to me because whenever famous people talk about being famous it feels they are complaining and she talks about it eloquently. Being famous is potentially dangerous and unhealthy because when you stand out you can’t belong and when you can’t belong you can’t really connect with others. The isolation some celebs embrace as a defense mechanism also imprisons them.
What an unflattering pic. Her face doesn’t just look different, it looks bad.
God. How utterly boring and not true. I don’t think she was offered the same caliber of projects. I mean doing a third installment of BJD is hardly a dramatic stretch but I am sure the paycheck is big. I think ahe ran by me on Madison ave two years ago. Cute prior, now very Daryl Hannah esque alas. Have never understood her success as it’s always the same performance w that voice. Personality vs artist but shes made a lot of $$$$&.
Also- like most celebs who can retire five times over- there are strong Independent scripts out there that would love a big name. These roles often are substantive but don’t have the fat paycheck and perks……if the objective was to really stretch and dig deep :))
Its nice to see her return to acting. She looks great IMO, even if she does look a tad different. Kudos for taking time off and getting a life.