Facts about Renee Zellweger

Renee Zellweger is 55 years old
Born: April 25, 1969
Birthplace: Katy, Texas, United States
Best known as: Star of Chicago and Jerry Maguire

     

     

Renee Zellweger Biography

A longtime star of the silver screen, Renee Zellweger won the Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role as plucky Ruby Thewes in the 2003 Civil War drama Cold Mountain. She won a second Oscar as a leading actress for playing Judy Garland in Judy (2019).

Renee Zellweger is an athletic Texas native whose early roles were in youth-oriented movies like Dazed and Confused (1993) and Reality Bites (1994). Her career took a great leap forward when she co-starred with Tom Cruise in the romantic drama Jerry Maguire, one of the top-grossing films of 1996. (“You had me at hello,” her line from that film, became a classic Hollywood one-liner.)

In 2001 Zellweger took the title role in Bridget Jones’ Diary, the film of the popular Helen Fielding novel. She played the flustered character again in sequels Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) and Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016). She received rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for her performance as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago (2002, with Richard Gere). Petite yet strong, pretty and yet not a classic beauty, Zellweger had a versatility that landed her in dramas and romances like Nurse Betty (2000, with Greg Kinnear), Down With Love (2003, co-starring Ewan McGregor), and Cinderella Man (2005, with Russell Crowe).

Renee Zellweger took a six-year hiatus from screen acting from 2010-2016, returning in the 2016 thriller The Whole Truth (with Keanu Reeves). She then had her Oscar-winning star turn in the 2019 biopic Judy, with Zellweger as tragic movie and singing star Judy Garland.

 

Extra credit

The role of Roxie Hart was originated on Broadway by Gwen Verdon… Renee Zellweger married country music star Kenny Chesney in May of 2005, but four months later announced that the marriage would be annulled… According to a 2005 story in The Times of London, “Her father Emil is a Swiss engineer who worked for the Houston Light and Power company, her mother is a Norwegian nurse called Kjellfrid”… She was romantically linked with Jim Carrey, her co-star in the film Me, Myself and Irene, in 2000, but the two ended their much-discussed romance later that year.


     

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