The method acting tricks that earned Renée Zellweger her first Oscar nomination: “Felt like a fraud”
Renée Zellweger has come a long way since her first major leading role in the box-office bomb The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, costarring Matthew McConaughey, with whom she had previously appeared in the acclaimed Dazed and Confused. But now, the duo were facing Leatherface in the fourth instalment of the once-successful horror franchise.
Luckily, that same year saw her appear in Empire Records, and then came Jerry Maguire in 1996, which earned her some award nominations, including one from the Screen Actors Guild, but the turning point of Zellweger’s career came in 2001, when she bagged a role that had many people up in arms, demanding why a Texas-born actor had been cast as the quintessentially British protagonist of Bridget Jones’s Diary?
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Helen Fielding, the movie needed someone captivating as Bridget, someone who understood the trials and tribulations of being a single 30-something-year-old and could play it with equal parts pathos and humour.
The book had been a hit, with its casual, endlessly readable style, which saw Bridget pen pages of hilarious reflections on her love life, family and friend matters, and her career, documenting her weight, how many alcohol units she was drinking a day, and how many cigarettes she smoked with every diary entry; the book became a relatable bible for many women across Britain.
Like many, Bridget was weight-conscious, obsessed with the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and incredibly skilled at getting into embarrassing situations, making her a vision of the modern woman, flaws and all. It would be a big undertaking to bring such a beloved character to life, and people were especially unhappy that an American was cast in the leading role, but by the time the movie was released, many people were none the wiser. Zellweger was utterly convincing, and she got there by indulging in various method acting techniques that clearly worked, because then she landed her first Academy Award nomination.
The character of Bridget Jones works in the publishing world, where she meets her sleazy love interest Daniel Cleaver, played by Hugh Grant, so Zellweger actually went undercover at Picador to gain a deeper understanding of Bridget’s job. Camilla Elsworthy, who was in charge of looking after her while she completed her ‘work experience’ recalled what it was like working with the actor as she prepared for her role.
“So convincing was Renée’s act that, after one meeting at which she had made some valuable contributions, our deputy publisher, Maria Rejt, no less, remarked on how impressive she was and said that we should try to find a job for her if she was serious about getting into publishing,” she wrote in The Guardian. Most people, apart from a few switched-on Jerry Maguire fans, had no idea who Zellweger was, allowing her to immerse herself in London’s publishing world in preparation.
Besides that, she gained 30 pounds and also retained her British accent during filming, both on and off screen. Grant reflected in an interview with Access Hollywood, “She was learning, perhaps she went a bit posh, she sounded a bit like Princess Anne for a bit. By the time we started shooting, she was bang on. And you know, she did it all the time off the set as well. I never spoke to her in her Texan accent until we got to the wrap party, and then it was just freaky. I wanted to call for security.”
Zellweger admitted that she “felt terrible, it felt like a fraud”, but that’s just the nature of being a Hollywood star. Sometimes, you’ve got to pretend to be an English publisher living in London, with two men fighting over you while you despair over the size of your pants or how not to turn your soup blue.
