Renee Zellweger Biography

A longtime star of the silver screen, Renee Zellweger won the Academy Award as best supporting actress for her role as plucky Ruby Thewes in the 2003 Civil War drama Cold Mountain. She won a second Oscar as a leading actress for playing Judy Garland in Judy (2019).

Renee Zellweger is an athletic Texas native whose early roles were in youth-oriented movies like Dazed and Confused (1993) and Reality Bites (1994). Her career took a great leap forward when she co-starred with Tom Cruise in the romantic drama Jerry Maguire, one of the top-grossing films of 1996. (“You had me at hello,” her line from that film, became a classic Hollywood one-liner.)

In 2001 Zellweger took the title role in Bridget Jones’ Diary, the film of the popular Helen Fielding novel. She played the flustered character again in sequels Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) and Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016). She received rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for her performance as Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago (2002, with Richard Gere). Petite yet strong, pretty and yet not a classic beauty, Zellweger had a versatility that landed her in dramas and romances like Nurse Betty (2000, with Greg Kinnear), Down With Love (2003, co-starring Ewan McGregor), and Cinderella Man (2005, with Russell Crowe).

Renee Zellweger took a six-year hiatus from screen acting from 2010-2016, returning in the 2016 thriller The Whole Truth (with Keanu Reeves). She then had her Oscar-winning star turn in the 2019 biopic Judy, with Zellweger as tragic movie and singing star Judy Garland.