Inside Renée Zellweger’s Award-Winning Comeback

Hot on the heels of last week's BAFTA win, last night Renée Zellweger picked up the Oscar for Best Actress, thus utterly conquering awards season. Her beguiling performance as the misunderstood and complex icon Judy Garland has been described as ‘transcendent’, returning her to the top of the A-list elite.

Not that the star is forgetting the friends who’ve helped her re-establish herself. After her triumph at the BAFTAs, Renée, 50, dedicated her award to her British co-star Jessie Buckley. At the after-party, Grazia watched as Renée and Jessie celebrated, inseparable all night. Another old friend, Renée’s Bridget Jones co-star Hugh Grant, was also on hand to congratulate her, saying, ‘Well done, Jones. That was a silly little dress’ – an allusion to his character Daniel Cleaver, who fixated on Bridget’s ‘silly little skirt’. The pair then spent most of the after-party catching up.

Renée, who spoke to Grazia at the after-party, told us how ‘very special’ Hugh’s speech was. ‘I am so, so lucky to have so many wonderful friends and memories in this town,’ she said. Asked about how she was going to celebrate, she responded, ‘Honey, you’re looking at it!’

Renée’s success, however, hasn’t come easily. She has spoken publicly of her struggles with depression, which led to her taking a six-year Hollywood hiatus, beginning in 2010. ‘I wasn’t healthy,’ she told New York Magazine last year. ‘I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was the last thing on my list of priorities.’ She’s also suffered heartache. In 2006, she split from husband Kenny Chesney, dated Jim Carrey for a year, was briefly linked to Bradley Cooper, and then settled with guitarist Doyle Bramhall. However, the couple went their separate ways (our source adds ‘on reasonable terms’) last May. When she was publicly attacked for her changing face during these years, she wrote a scathing riposte to her critics, in an open letter entitled ‘We can do better’.

But after those turbulent years, according to Grazia’s sources, Renée is finally truly content. ‘She’s an independent soul who insists she doesn’t need a man to be happy,’ our source reveals. ‘She’s been on a few dates but nothing’s really clicked and she’s fine with that.’ And instead of leading a Hollywood lifestyle, Renée – whose breakout role was 1996’s Jerry Maguire, and who won an Oscar for Cold Mountain – is quite low-key. She prefers to hang out with a close group of ‘non-famous friends’ from her old life. ‘I depend on my little group of girlfriends, all of them brilliant,’ she has said. ‘We get together and watch Lemonade [Beyoncé’s visual album] and email a million Lemonade jokes. And mantras.’

Renée conceded that she will never be ‘good at being a public person, because there’s nothing natural about it’. But she admitted that she’s getting better at that side of things. ‘My girlfriends have a lot to do with that, because we can laugh about it.’ Her key to success is self-belief. ‘Assume in your favour,’ she said. ‘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.”’

Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding tells Grazia that Renée’s brilliance comes from her tenacity. ‘When she was cast as Bridget, there was a certain amount of outrage because she wasn’t British. That must have hurt. People admire Renée for sticking with it and making a huge success of the role,’ she says, adding that Renée was ‘lovely’ to work with and, as a method actor, spoke in a British accent off-camera, occasionally startling people by switching back to her Texan drawl. Renée’s power, adds Helen, comes from her ‘extraordinary ability to convey vulnerability – this is equally true with Bridget and Judy.’

Sharon Maguire directed both 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary and 2016's Bridget Jones's Baby. So how did she find the star had changed over that 15-year period? ' When we started out on BJD, we were both busking it somewhat,' Sharon tells Grazia. 'She was a Texan trying to play a Brit and I was a director of documentaries and commercials directing my first movie. We were both honest enough to want to learn from each other. 15 years on, we’d both learned a lot more, and Renée especially. I was in awe of how many comedic choices she brought to set for each scene. Her range has become vast and surprising. She’s an amazing and subtle comedienne, but luckily she’s also a great dramatic actress, which means she can bring emotional truth to the Bridget character while also servicing the comedy. Not an easy feat, but she often makes it look effortless.'

At first glance, Renée might have been an unusual choice for Judy – with the biopic focusing on the troubled last years of her life, high on prescription drugs, low on cash and losing custody of her kids. But director Rupert Goold told Grazia that working with her was a dream. ‘The best thing about Renée is that she’s really funny,’ he said. ‘She’s also very hard-working and, as a director, that’s what you want. Every shot she was hungry for notes. She’s very gracious.’

Sharon Maguire tells Grazia the Oscar could not be more deserved, explaining the film 'ripped me apart emotionally. Not because she portrayed an actress down on her luck, not only because she sang with an almighty voice and from the heart, but because she portrayed a mother torn from her children. The movie did me in. I was in bits.'

Post-Oscars, Renée will no doubt retreat to her Topanga Canyon ranch. ‘She likes to unwind through meditation, reading, writing or just relaxing in the garden. It’s her little piece of paradise and Topanga reminds her of Texas,’ Grazia’s source says. She enjoys a quiet life and has been sober ‘for years’. When asked about drinking recently, Renée said, wistfully, ‘There was a time...’ before adding, ‘I’m not that exciting any more.’ Hollywood begs to differ – the Renéessance has arrived.

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