Renée Zellweger is the woman of the moment. Back in action as Bridget Jones, the actress returns in the franchise's fourth instalment, Mad About the Boy. Slated for release on Valentine's Day, the eagerly-awaited rom-com reunites Renée with her beloved co-stars, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.
For fans of the OG movie – Bridget Jones's Diary – it's hard to imagine anyone else playing the haphazard heroine. But, did you know that Renée once took a six-year break from acting? After stepping away from the industry, it wasn't until 2016 that she came back for Bridget Jones's Baby.
In a new interview with Vogue, Renée was asked about her hiatus and revealed the real reason for her absence. "Because I needed to," she told Hugh Grant.
"I was sick of the sound of my own voice. 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."
Recalling what she got up to in those six years, Renée said: "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. I got healthy."
It's not the first time that Renée, 55, has addressed her decision to step away from Hollywood. Back in 2016, the A-lister spoke at a London press conference that HELLO! attended
"I was curious about other things," she mused at the time. "I had made a lot of promises to myself that I would do this and that. The cycle of making films is continuous – there's no time to explore other things.
"I wanted to learn something new and grow as a person and see if I had an aptitude for these things that interest me. And if not now, it would be, 'Oh in two more years, or three years, then ten years', and then just, ultimately, you just don't do them. And I didn't want that to happen."
"I hope I'm a little less boring than I might have been after just 25 years of being an actress and being in that cycle of making films," she continued.
"I mean I learnt a lot with each of those experiences but I wanted to learn something that had nothing to do with researching a character and I wanted to learn some things beyond the scope of what you are exposed to in filmmaking in Hollywood."