Signature line: “You had me at hello.”
Career Peaks: In 1996, Zellweger played the lovable chipmunk-cheeked girl next door who wins the love of jacked-up talent agent Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Women also identified with her as a Jane Austen-inspired chubby Brit diarist in Bridget Jones Diary and its sequel.
Awards Attention: Bridget Jones Diary—and her flawless Brit accent—garnered Zellweger an Oscar nomination, as did her show-stopping turn as murderous song-and-dance girl Roxie Hart in the Oscar-winning Chicago. Zellweger finally won for her folksy supporting role in 2003’s Cold Mountain.
Latest Misfire: Zellweger starred as a Miami career woman who moves to a small town in Minnesota in Gold Circle’s fish-out-of-water comedy New in Town. The badly reviewed romance co-starred Harry Connick Jr. and grossed $22 million worldwide. This, after dipping box office receipts (Nurse Betty, Down with Love, Miss Potter, Leatherheads, Appaloosa).
Biggest Problem: The gifted actress is facing an unforgiving industry that doles out few juicy roles for women over 40. Too long in the tooth to play the cute and spunky ingenues that worked best for audiences early in her career, Zellweger has lately starred in several indies financed overseas (My One and Only, New in Town), where her marquee bankability (like most stars these days) is fading. Unable to land a stateside distributor for My One and Only, a road movie starring Zellweger as a 50s East Side socialite Mom who takes off with her two teen boys after catching her bandleader husband (Kevin Bacon) with a floozie, Zellweger’s reps signed up indie self-release outfit Freestyle. Although the movie nabbed decent reviews and opening weekend box office August 21 in limited release in four theaters, its future is uncertain.
Biggest Assets: She’s an enchanting character actress and audiences like her.
Current Gossip: She’s dating hunk-du-jour Bradley Cooper. “Is it over?” asks Page Six. “She’s messed up her face and doesn’t eat,” snipes one marketing exec.
Next Step: Zellweger’s playing the studio game, starring opposite Cooper in Christian Alvert’s genre thriller Case 39, as a social worker who adopts a little girl who is nastier than she looks. After several stalls on the opening, Paramount is set to release the film around the world this fall. Her next role as a wheelchair-bound singer in My Own Love Song suggests that she may be in danger of falling prey to Noble Actress Syndrome (see: Cinderella Man). “She takes herself so seriously,” sighs one studio exec.
Career Advice: Mix it up. Be open-minded. But finding the love of her life may no longer be the answer, cautions one talent agent. “She should do more comedy like Jerry Maguire,” says one casting director. “She could do a villainess with comic overtones in a comic-book action ensemble, as Heath Ledger did in Dark Knight, or Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow in Iron Man 2. Or a play on Broadway. You’ve got to be out there in the universe so people see you’re working.” There’s debate about whether she’s ready yet to take a television/HBO detour like Drew Barrymore (Grey Gardens), Kate Winslet (Mildred Pierce) or Evan Rachel Wood ( True Blood). “She needs a Charlize Theron/Monster indie film role,” suggests one studio exec. “What’s a hit now? Isn’t it about people thinking you’re good? There’s no work out there.”
Here’s the Case 39 trailer:
by Anne Thompson, posted to Headliners, Renee Zellweger on August 25, 2009 at 6:57am PDT | Permalink | Comments (19)
Anne Thompson does more than just break news; she provides an insider’s clear-eyed analysis of a business that defines culture at home and abroad.
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