In the early 2000s, Renée Zellweger was one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. Her roles in Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago, and Cold Mountain (the latter of which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress) made her a household name. However, by the end of the decade, she decided to step away from the world of acting for six years.

While speaking with Hugh Grant for British Vogue, Zellweger explained why she took her six-year hiatus. “Because I needed to. I was sick of the sound of my own voice,” She said. “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.“

Although she wasn’t acting during that period, she did keep busy. “[I] 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,” she explained, “and spent a lot of time with family and godchildren and driving across the country with the dogs. I got healthy.“

Zellweger returned to Hollywood in 2016 for Bridget Jones’s Baby, the third installment of the franchise. She also earned an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Judy. After that, she seemed to take another hiatus, only appearing in The Thing About Pam, a 2022 true-crime comedy mini-series that explored Pam Hupp’s involvement in the 2011 murder of Betsy Faria.

Bridget Jones brought Zellweger back once again. She has reprised the role for Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, which will debut exclusively on Peacock in the U.S. on February 13th and will be released in theaters internationally on February 14th.

In the film, “Bridget is alone once again, widowed four years ago, when Mark (Colin Firth) was killed on a humanitarian mission in the Sudan. She’s now a single mother to 9-year-old Billy and 4-year-old Mabel, and is stuck in a state of emotional limbo, raising her children with help from her loyal friends and even her former lover, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). Pressured by her Urban Family —Shazzer, Jude and Tom, her work colleague Miranda, her mother, and her gynecologist Dr. Rawlings (Emma Thompson) — to forge a new path toward life and love, Bridget goes back to work and even tries out the dating apps, where she’s soon pursued by a dreamy and enthusiastic younger man (Leo Woodall). Now juggling work, home and romance, Bridget grapples with the judgment of the perfect mums at school, worries about Billy as he struggles with the absence of his father, and engages in a series of awkward interactions with her son’s rational-to-a-fault science teacher (Chiwetel Ejiofor).“

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