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29
December 2006
Renee
Zellweger Pooh-Poohs Ado
Over British
Roles
American
actress Renee
Zellweger
doesn't know what all
the fuss is over her
playing British
women.
Renee
Zellweger created a stir
several years ago when
she landed the coveted
role of the lonely
London "singleton"
Bridget Jones, adapted
from Helen Fielding's
best-selling book
"Bridget Jones's Diary."
She famously took speech
lessons before landing
the part, beating a host
of British
actresses.
Now
she is playing another
British figure in "Miss
Potter," a biopic of
English literary
phenomenon Beatrix
Potter, whose early 20th
century children's
books, including "The
Tale of Peter Rabbit,"
remain
bestsellers.
Acclaimed
actors Emily Watson and
Ewan McGregor play mere
supporting roles
opposite the petite
blond Texan, who has
earned a Golden Globe
award nomination for the
role.
But
Renee Zellweger says
that compared to the
fictional Bridget Jones,
playing Potter, who died
in 1943, brought
different
expectations.
"I
guess the difference was
there are clearly more
people to disappoint,"
Renee, 37, told Reuters
in an interview. "I
won't say that Helen
Fielding didn't create a
character that was
embraced by British
culture, but Beatrix was
a part of the fibre of
British literature in a
very substantial
way."
The
film's Australian
director Chris Noonan
was less delicate about
Renee Zellweger's threat
to national
pride.
"They
are ashamed of it in
England; they have got
an American playing this
English character," he
joked at a press
conference when asked
why the film had
premiered in Britain but
not yet
opened.
"Miss
Potter" has a limited US
release this week and
opens in Britain in
January 2007.
Renee
Zellweger, who helped
bring the film to the
screen as an executive
producer, said her
origins may add to any
attention, including
whether she can again
ably lose any Texas
twang.
"It
is just work. It is part
of the process," she
said of perfecting the
English accent. "It's
much more exciting to
talk about blaspheming
the language because
you're from Texas, I
guess."
Sprinkling
her talk with
Britishisms like
"brilliant," Zellweger
dismissed as fabrication
reports of a third
Bridget Jones
film.
"I
said 'bollocks.' I said
there was no truth to it
at all," she
said.
During
the filming of "Miss
Potter," Zellweger did
not break out of her
accent on or off the
set, while working with
the same dialogue coach
as in Bridget
Jones.
"It
was just lazy," she
said. "The truth is I
just want it to be habit
because I don't want to
think about
it."
She
said she suspected the
press attention given to
her accent and weight
made for exciting
tabloid headlines for
which she received the
first of two best
actress Oscar
nominations. Zellweger
won a best supporting
actress Academy Award
for her role in 2003's
"Cold
Mountain".
"It's
disheartening, because
it is a reflection of
what it is that we
value," she said. "And
it is a superficiality
that does not deserve
the focus of energy that
it gets; it's boring.
And it sends wrong
messages."
But
the amicable Renee is
mostly positive about
her
experience.
"It's
just been sort of
chance", she said she
has long felt a calling.
"I love British humour
and the way people
communicate. That, and
Paul McCartney comes
from England. From the
age of about 4, I knew
it was a destination,"
she said.
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