Renée Zellweger Says She Took a 6-Year Hiatus from Acting Because She Was 'Sick of the Sound of My Own Voice'

Even Oscar winners can only take so much of seeing (or hearing) themselves — just ask Renée Zellweger!

The Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy star graces the cover of British Vogue's February 2025 issue, where she addresses why she took a six-year acting hiatus from 2010 to 2016.

The bottom line? "Because I needed to. I was sick of the sound of my own voice," said Zellweger, 55.

"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," she explained.

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Related: Renée Zellweger Opens Up About Her Big Return and Her Life Now: 'Normalcy is Pretty Damn Good'

With her time off, the actress "wrote music and studied international law," she told the magazine.

Zellweger also "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 and spent a lot of time with family and godchildren and driving across the country with the dogs."

"I got healthy," she continued.

Asked if she would still go into acting if she got a life do-over, the Chicago actress said, "I’m not sure that the way that it works now, celebrity and all of that stuff, I don’t know that that suits me."

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Related: Renée Zellweger Studied Law During Her Break from Acting: 'I Snuck Into UCLA for a Little While'

Zellweger went on to note how she believes "there used to be a line between celebrity and art" 25 years ago. Now, she feels that balance "has become increasingly ambiguous."

"And 'notorious' and 'famous' and 'known' are now all the same thing," she said. "It used to be that you were known because you had done something that was worth knowing about."

As for whether she prefers the term "actor" or "actress," Zellweger told British Vogue, "I became an actress and now I’m an actor."

"I guess I’m indifferent to those things. I don’t care. It’s so fun not to have opinions about certain things, isn’t it?" she added.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is streaming Feb. 13, exclusively on Peacock.

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