Renee Zellweger took a career break because her life experiences were "pretend".
Renee Zellweger
The 47-year-old actress has made a return to acting after six years to reprise her lead role in 'Bridget Jones' Baby', and the star has admitted she felt it was necessary to take some time out because her work was taking up all of her time, which left her with no time to try new things.
She said: " I wasn't living very healthy ... I wasn't working all the time, I was only working.
"It's quite a commitment - there are many phases to making a film, you don't just make it and then you're done.
"So if you do a couple or a few a year, the cycle starts to fold in on itself and there's no time for real life.
"I was at an age where I wanted to grow and not just as a consequence of research I might be doing for a character. I wanted to make some choices about what other kind of work I might do in that respect.
"It required that I would take some time to do it. IT became a priority for me.
"You can't be successful, creatively, if you're not drawing from life experience. And my life experiences were pretend."
Renee began her work on 'Bridget Jones' Baby' long before she needed to as she wanted to ensure she had the character's British accent in place so she didn't have to focus on it too much during filming.
She said: "The accident was in place from August to when we wrapped at Christmas time.
"It's easier for me if we begin before we begin Then when we're rehearsing I'm not thinking about how I'm saying things. I'm telling the bit of the story that we need to that day.
"It's lazy really, if you think about it. I don't want to work on it every day so I cheat before we begin."
The American actress thinks Bridget's appeal lies in her "humanity".
She told Empire: "It's her humanity. She's true. She's an authentic person. She's flawed but it doesn't become a hindrance - she carries on. She's quintessentially British."
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