Renée Zellweger: Why I ‘Needed’ to Quit Acting for 6 Years

Renée Zellweger opened up to Bridget Jones co-star Hugh Grant on why she “needed” to take a six-year break from acting.

In an interview for British Vogue published Wednesday, Zellweger told Grant that she grew “sick” of hearing her own voice and needed to take a step back to reinvigorate her craft.

“I needed to [take a hiatus]. I was sick of the sound of my own voice. When I was working, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, listen to you. Are you sad again, Renée? Oh, is this your mad voice?’,” the actress shared. “It was a regurgitation of the same emotional experiences.”

When Grant asked what she did during her time off, Zellweger replied that she “wrote music and 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 continued. “Spent a lot of time with family and godchildren and driving across the country with the dogs. I got healthy.”

The two-time Academy Award winner took a break from acting in 2010 after completing her work on Olivier Dahan’s My Own Love Song. She kickstarted her comeback in 2016 for the third installment of the Bridget Jones film series, Bridget Jones’s Baby.

Upon her return to acting, Zellweger told British Vogue in 2016 that she had to take a break because she was “fatigued” and wasn’t allowing herself the appropriate recovery time between projects.

“As a creative person, saying no to that wonderful once-in-a-lifetime project is hard,” Zellweger said at the time. “But I was fatigued and wasn’t taking the time I needed to recover between projects, and it caught up with me.”

Zellweger and Grant star in the upcoming fourth installment of the Bridget Jones-verse titled Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. The film premieres on Peacock February 13.