A DECADE AND A HALF AFTER BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY, RENÉE ZELLWEGER BRINGS OUR FLAWED HEROINE BACK TO THE BIG SCREEN. SHE TALKS TO ROSAMUND DEAN ABOUT FALLING IN LOVE, MAKING MISTAKES AND WHAT WE CAN ALL LEARN FROM BEYONCÉ

When interviewing a Red cover star, I’m usually summoned to a bland luxurious hotel; somewhere quiet, discreet and eye-wateringly expensive. But Renée Zellweger, who’s in London recording

additional dialogue for the new Bridget Jones film, wants to meet in the Soho branch of Bill’s. Yes, Bill’s: the cheap-and-cheerful, child-friendly chain restaurant where you or I might go for a relaxed brunch. Not the sort of place in which you’d expect to find a Hollywood star.

But the warm, noisy, unpretentious surroundings suit Zellweger perfectly. I have to remind myself I am not, in fact, hanging out with Bridget Jones, particularly since she speaks in a British accent throughout our entire encounter.

“Hello,” she smiles brightly, sounding exactly like Bridget, “lovely to meet you.” Dressed inconspicuously, in a grey zip-up hoodie and endearingly unfashionable black Brooks Cascadia trainers, she wears a burnt orange baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her blonde hair spilling out underneath. Nobody in Bill’s bats an eyelid.

As she takes a seat, I ask if she keeps the accent up all the time. “Oh yes,” she nods, “since we started filming last year.” I gasp. Really?

“No!” Her face crinkles into that distinctive Zellweger grin. “But Sharon [Maguire, the film’s director] told me »

THE REAL RENÉEPhotographs BRIAN BOWEN SMITH Styling PETRA FLANNERY

Cashmere coat, £4,000, Dior. Ring, her own

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to keep it up while I’m here.” Obviously, I love the fact that she’s making fun of me already.

Bridget Jones’s Baby arrives this month, 15 years after the smash hit Bridget Jones’s Diary, and 12 years since the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason. I loved those films. With her hopes and fears and propensity for drinking too much and saying the wrong thing, Bridget was every woman. She was us, and we were Bridget. And so, I’m pleased to report, is Zellweger. Now 47, she is open, self-deprecating and quite hilarious.

“Is it martini o’clock?” she asks, with a laugh. But, when the waiter comes over, she concedes, “I’m not that exciting. Any more.” She orders an apple, carrot and ginger juice then adds, wistfully, “There was a time.”

She tells me the Bridget of the new film is “older, slightly wiser” and, like the actress who has become synonymous with her, I guess now might also choose a juice over a martini on a Tuesday afternoon. “She’s less naïve, more professionally accomplished,” Zellweger continues. “But still has her charms and her idiosyncrasies.”

Still has her foibles, I suggest. “Of course,” she grins, “don’t we all?” Her favourite thing about Bridget is “she always survives it. Whatever it is. Gives us hope”.

And Zellweger is certainly a survivor. We’ve all had bad relationships and work disasters. The difference is she’s in the public eye where things must appear golden. One of the most interesting women in Hollywood, she rarely gives interviews, because “if you’re going to talk about yourself for an hour then you’re bound to say something stupid, you just are”.

Having struggled with fame, she says she is finally getting better at it. “Not good at it,” she stresses, “I don’t think I’ll ever be good at being a public person, because there’s nothing natural about it. But I’m getting better. And my girlfriends have a lot to do with that because we can laugh at it.”

Female friendship is vital to Zellweger. “I depend on my little group of girlfriends,” she nods, “all of them different, and brilliant. We get together and watch (Beyoncé’s visual album) Lemonade, and subsequently email a million Lemonade jokes. And mantras.”

The next five minutes of our conversation descend into a Beyoncé love-in (Zellweger deems her “a remarkable human being”). She sums it up with: “Well, we’ve got Beyoncé, so things aren’t all bad.”

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED SINCE WE FIRST MET BRIDGET JONES. Now single women in their thirties are less likely to sit around worrying about finding a man, and this shift in attitude is reflected in the new film. “There are conversations about ageism and independence and evolving with the times,” nods Zellweger. As the title suggests, this time Bridget is pregnant. The twist is the father could be one of two men (not such a bad problem to

have when it’s Patrick Dempsey or Colin Firth). She also has a new thirtysomething friend, played by Red favourite Sarah Solemani, who couldn’t care less about Mr Right.

“Renée is rock ’n’ roll,” Solemani tells me over email. “She really doesn’t give a shit, and she’s wickedly funny. When she found out I had a child, she looked me up and down in my bra and denim hotpants, raised an eyebrow and just said ‘slut’. We laughed into the take.”

Having watched the film, I can assure you it’s exactly what you’re hoping: smart, sweary, and very funny.

ZELLWEGER’S BREAKOUT ROLE WAS JERRY MAGUIRE, in which she made “you had me at ‘hello’” one of the most iconic lines of all time. When I mention it’s been 20 years, her eyes widen. “20 years? Since Jerry Maguire? No. Let’s do the math again. It can’t be right!”

What advice would she give herself then, knowing what she knows now. “Don’t lose this,” she says, firmly. “Don’t lose this joy, this gratitude, this enthusiasm. Keep having fun. Because, when it starts to feel like less of a discovery and more of a responsibility, it gets challenging.”

That’s when the pressure starts? “Maybe,” she says, “but that’s my fault. I did that.” Her career has seen extraordinary highs (an Oscar for Cold Mountain, two more nominations for Bridget

Jones’s Diary and Chicago) but, after a run of films that didn’t perform as expected, she took some time out in 2010. “I needed to stop. It was time,” she says, adding she’s lucky to be financially secure enough to do so. “I’m a working girl, but I did save so that, when it was time for me to take a minute, I could.”

A minute turned into five years, during which “I did the things I used to do if I had time. I visited my parents. I spent time with my brother and his children. I made a home for myself. I fell in love with somebody.”

Ah yes, love. Zellweger is a hopeless romantic. She was previously engaged to Jim Carrey and briefly married to singer Kenny Chesney. But, for the last four years, she’s been happily in a relationship with blues musician Doyle Bramhall II. They have known each other since meeting at university in Austin, Texas in 1990.

The day before we meet, I read in a US magazine that they’re engaged. “I read that too! Isn’t it exciting? I wonder what I’ll wear.” She fixes me with a mock-quizzical expression: “Did it say when I’m getting married?”

So it’s not true? “No. Somebody made that up. Who do you think it was?” Well, according to the story, a ‘friend’ of yours… “Oh, that friend. That friend gets around, they talk a lot.” She rolls her eyes. “Somebody actually sits in a room and comes up with these things: ‘This week she’s too fat to be loved. This week she’s too skinny to be loved.’ What are you going to do? Everyone has fat days and, if you can’t be loved on them, then whatever.” »

I don’t think I’ll ever be good at being a PUBLIC

PERSON, because there’s NOTHING natural about it

Wool crepe dress, price on request,

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“You know how you RUMINATE about what might be? Well, do the

OPPOSITE of that. Because that VOICE is talking anyway, so

it might as well be on YOUR SIDE”

Coat; dress; ring, all as before

Jennifer Aniston recently wrote a blog for The Huffington Post about being defined by the fact she hasn’t reproduced (as are actresses like Cameron Diaz, but not actors like George Clooney). She lamented “how much we define a woman’s value based on her marital and maternal status” and “the perpetuation of this notion that women are somehow incomplete, unsuccessful, or unhappy if they’re not married with children.” Zellweger hoots with laughter as we discuss the tabloids that refer to Aniston as ‘poor Jen’. “She’s living the dream,” she exclaims, “every possible dream! She does what she wants creatively and she has a great husband and these great dogs. She’s so happy. ‘Poor Jen’? That’s hilarious to me.”

SHE CAN LAUGH AT THE RIDICULOUSNESS, but Zellweger has been on the sharp end of tabloid attention many times. Not only for the perceived stigma of being unmarried and child-free, but also endless opinions about her weight and speculation as to whether she’s had ‘work’ done. Some things must be easier to laugh off than others.

“It’s not just tabloids any more,” she says sadly. “There’s snark in our legitimate news sources and entertainment has crossed over into news so the snark has followed.”

I believe she’s referring to something that appeared in film-industry bible Variety a couple of days before we meet. A trailer for Bridget Jones’s Baby had been released, and a piece by Variety’s chief film critic specifically criticised Zellweger’s appearance. “She doesn’t look like Bridget Jones,” he wrote. “I hope it turns out to be a movie that stars Renée Zellweger, rather than a victim of Invasion of the Face Snatchers.”

Some actresses spoke out in her defence. Christina Applegate tweeted the piece was “offensive” and Rose McGowan wrote a guest column in the Hollywood Reporter criticising the writer’s sexist and ageist remarks. (For the record, Zellweger’s face looks normal to me. And frankly, who cares if an actor has had fillers or not.)

“Where is it coming from that it seems okay to cause pain to somebody?” she continues. “When did we become that? Trying to humiliate people we don’t know because we have an idea about who we think they are, or because it will sell papers but with no concern for the effect it might have on their lives. What are we fostering in our younger generations with this bullying behaviour?”

I suddenly feel depressed about the future of our society, and it must show. She tilts her head apologetically. “I have brought you down. I’m drinking ginger juice, and I’ve brought you down. This is not what Beyoncé would want.”

The subject is clearly playing on her mind because after we meet, Zellweger writes her own blog for The Huffington Post, in which she says this brand of reporting “perpetuates unkind double standards, lowers the level of social discourse, and standardises cruelty as a cultural norm.”

Despite the challenges of being in the public eye, Zellweger seems completely together. Her head is screwed on, and she has a great attitude to the whole circus.

Perhaps it comes with age, or is learnt the hard way, but it feels like she has an innate confidence. I ask if she has any advice for Red readers returning from holiday determined to get that pay rise or stand up for ourselves more.

“How do I put it,” she begins. “You know how you ruminate about what might be?” Catastrophise?

“Yes. Well, do the opposite of that. Because that voice is talking anyway, so it might as well be on your side. You know, Beyoncé doesn’t sit backstage thinking, ‘This is never going to work.’”

A few days later, she emails to clarify, explaining her brain was frazzled by jet lag. “I wanted to say: ‘Assume in your favour.’” It’s good advice.

I hope her return to acting is permanent and she’s going to be back in our lives for a while, because we need women like Zellweger in the public eye. Women who are funny and clever, but also vulnerable, and make mistakes.

When I ask what is the mistake that taught her the most, she raises her eyebrows and smiles. “Oh, I can’t tell you.” She thinks a bit more. “I can’t tell you that one either.” She’s laughing now. “Hmm… or that one, or that one…”

At this point, a friend of Zellweger’s arrives holding a large white wine, and indicates she’ll be waiting on another table for us to finish. I get the feeling her martini-drinking side might come out after I leave.

As we hug goodbye, and she promises we’ll have martinis next time, I realise I could stay here all evening, drinking and fangirling in Bill’s. And it’s that feeling that makes Zellweger the perfect Bridget Jones. Because she’s fun and flawed and real, and we love her just as she is. eBridget Jones’s Baby is released on 16th September

For Renée Zellweger’s Best Things In Life, visit REDONLINE.CO.UK

After her Oscar win in 2004 for Cold Mountain; with partner Doyle Bramhall II

CLOCKWISE, FROM RIGHT: In Bridget Jones’s Diary; with Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire; in Bridget Jones’s Baby

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