Renee Zellweger says Bridget Jones helped her make friends

Renee Zellweger. Pic/AFP

Actress Renee Zellweger says playing Bridget Jones helped her make new friends because people wanted to speak to her about the loved character.

"I make friends every day because of Bridget. Someone comes up and says, 'I learned this from Bridget' or 'She means so much to me'. What a gift," Zellweger said, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

The actress said she can still see a lot of herself in Bridget. Talking about the upcoming TV special "Being Bridget Jones", Zellweger said: "All the things that you would most like not to have in common with Bridget are the things that I find I relate to most closely. I've had moments when I feel like I'm sitting beside myself watching my Bridget alter ego just spiralling, circling the drain."

She sympathises with the pressures on women to always look good and to have a family of their own. She feels Bridget's issues have struck a chord with many women.

"Ridiculous things, like how much we weigh or what we look like in a dress or our hair or whether or not we've achieved this list of things that others value by the time we're 30 or 40 or 50. She struggles with it and she tries and she fails, like all of us. What it boils down to in the end is self acceptance. I think it's appreciating that being imperfect is what you're supposed to be," she said.

The actress thinks women face more of the pressure to have children than men. She said: "It's one of those things that makes us human, isn't it? We hope to be loved and hope to love someone and share our lives in some capacity. For a lady, sadly, there's this pressure and this sort of unspoken judgment.

"If you're not cherished by someone, if a man doesn't find you and treasure you, then your worth somehow comes into question. It's just the reality of being a lady," she added.

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