Renée Zellweger's Real Name: Renée Kathleen Zellweger

Quick answer: Renée Zellweger's full name is Renée Kathleen Zellweger. She was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas. Renée Zellweger is her real name, and Kathleen is her middle name. She is known for Jerry Maguire (1996), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Chicago (2002), and her Academy Award-winning performances in Cold Mountain (2003) and Judy (2019) (Biography.com; Britannica).

Real name and early life

Biography.com states that "Renee Kathleen Zellweger was born on April 25, 1969, in Katy, Texas, a small town outside Houston." Britannica uses the same date and town. The Library of Congress files her as "Zellweger, Renée, 1969-," and a citation note also gives the full name and Texas birthplace.

After attending Katy High School, where Biography.com says she participated in athletics and cheerleading, she enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. Britannica says she studied English literature there and, though she first leaned toward journalism, was drawn to acting after brief stage work in college.

Career highlights

Director Cameron Crowe cast her as Dorothy Boyd, opposite Tom Cruise, in Jerry Maguire (1996). The film's success made her widely known. She won a Golden Globe Award for the comedy Nurse Betty (2000). She then starred as Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), based on Helen Fielding's novel, which earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA nominations for best actress. She received a second Golden Globe and a second Oscar nomination for best actress for her work in the film adaptation of the stage musical Chicago (2002), opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones. A later sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, followed the first Bridget Jones film. For Cold Mountain (2003) she won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, and the BAFTA for best supporting actress.

After a period away from acting, she returned in Bridget Jones's Baby (2016) and later portrayed Judy Garland in Judy (2019). Britannica says that performance brought her the Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for best actress in 2020. Other credits from this period include the romantic comedy Down with Love and the television series What/If. Britannica describes her as an actress known for portraying vulnerable characters in films such as Jerry Maguire, Nurse Betty, Bridget Jones's Diary, and Judy.

Name notes for searchers

Renée is her given first name, Kathleen her middle name, and Zellweger her family surname. The accent in Renée is often dropped in English-language headlines and credits, which may appear as Renee Zellweger. Library catalogs also include transliterations of the surname.