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Renee Zellweger Renee Zellweger recently starred in Neil Labute’s dark comedy Nurse Betty opposite Greg Kinnear, Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for her performance as a woman whose husband is killed and delusionally thinks a soap opera star is her husband. Zellweger’s vulnerable performance opposite Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire left critics raving, the box-office soaring and acting awards ensuing. The character is a dedicated accountant and widowed mother who joins sports agent Maguire in his quest for principled representation, later joining him in matrimony. For her performance she was named Best Breakthrough Performer of 1996 by The National Board of Review, received a Blockbuster Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy and was nominated for a SAG Award. According to director Cameron Crowe, “Renee’s appeal is that she is just Renee, quirky and heartfelt. When I told her ‘You got the part’ there was a silence. Then she said, ‘What makes you think I’ll take it?’”

Her most current films demonstrate both her value as a rising young performer and her devotion to projects of substance. She starred in Universal’s critically acclaimed One True Thing as a young woman who returns home to help her father (William Hurt) take care of her dying mother (Meryl Streep) and discovers the strength of family bonds. She also starred as a Hasidic Jew with religious doubts in Miramax’s A Price Above Rubies, in the Farrelly brothers Me, Myself and Irene opposite Jim Carrey and as a prim Texas schoolteacher opposite Vincent D’Onofrio in the truth-based Depression-era independent film The Whole Wide World, earning kudos from critics and audiences at The Sundance Film Festival and receiving a Best Actress Award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Considering she took her first acting class to ensure graduating from The University of Texas with a literature degree, Renee Zellweger’s rise to leading lady status has been as rapid as it has been unexpected. She made her film debut while still in Austin in Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age film Dazed and Confused. This was followed by Ben Stiller’s Reality Bites, Love and a .45 (for which she received her first Independent Spirit Award nomination), 8 Seconds, The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Empire Records and Liar