| REN�E'S OSCAR DIARY Renee Zellweger will long remember this year's Oscars as a true Cinderella moment. It began with a magnificent gown, a limousine ride to the ceremonies and ended with Zellweger in jeans and a T-shirt scrubbing floors. "I had always intended to rush home after the ceremony to check on my dog Dylan. He's been ill for a while, but he'd had a pretty bad turn that day. "I just wanted to go home and kiss him on the nose and tell him I loved him," says Zellweger. Dylan, the beloved collie-golden retriever Zellweger rescued, has seen her through her best moments and her worst. He's been at her side to learn of her Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Bridget Jones's Diary and Chicago and to ease her through her breakups with Jim Carrey and George Clooney. He's shared her tiny apartments, luxury apartments and her beautiful homes. She knows their time together is getting shorter so she is determined to spend as much quality time with Dylan as possible. "On my way out of the Kodak Centre, one of the doormen stepped on my dress and exposed something that shouldn't go to a Vanity Fair party, so I intended to change into another dress at home." Zellweger, 34, and a friend were limoed to her place in L.A. only to discover she had left her keys in the house. "My friend had to scale the wall to get in through an open window." Once they were inside, Zellweger discovered Dylan had been very ill in several of the rooms. "Suddenly the fantasy aspect of the evening gave way to reality. "I changed out of my gown, took Dylan into the yard to give him a bath and spent the rest of the evening cleaning floors and comforting him. "It was a big and memorable night in more ways than one." Zellweger lost her 2002 Oscar bid to Halle Berry and this year's to Nicole Kidman. "Oscars are a no-lose situation. You're in those beautiful gowns and in that incredible company. You just love your job. This year every one in the (best actress) category is a dear, dear friend," says Zellweger of Kidman, Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek and Diane Lane. "It really, really was a shared moment among friends. We knew we were all going to be happy for whoever won and that made it all the more magical and wonderful." Zellweger did take the stage during the evening to present an award, but she did not join her Chicago costar Catherine Zeta-Jones to sing I Move On, their Oscar-nominated song.Instead, she gave the honour to Queen Latifah. "I don't regret that decision for a second. I know myself and my work ethic. I would have needed to push myself for the two weeks before the show, instead of enjoying myself and celebrating my nomination.I want to make the first time I sing in public as special for those watching me as it will be for me, and I was so tired because I made three pictures in a row, so I couldn't possibly have done my best." Zellweger is back this Friday with more magnificent costumes and another song flowing from her heart in the romantic comedy Down With Love. As feuding lovers, she and Ewan McGregor pay affectionate tribute to the Doris Day and Rock Hudson romantic comedies of the 1960s. There is a great deal of flirting, sexual innuendo and scheming in the courtship, but the lovers never quite consummate their passion. For a video over the closing credits, she and McGregor sing a duet of Here's to Love. In Down With Love, Zellweger plays Barbara Novak, a small town girl who writes a feminist diatribe demanding equality for women not just in the board room, but in the bedroom. Her nemesis Catcher Block (McGregor), is an award-winning journalist and a renowned lothario. Barbara says chocolate is as satisfying as sex when women are in control of their desires as well as their destinies. Zellweger is not quite sure where she stands on this issue. "All I seem to do these days is work so I don't get to meet anyone, therefore I just fantasize about both," she says with a giggle. She insists she is still very much a romantic: "I'm not down on love. I've had those moments, but they've passed because I'm a die-hard romantic at heart. "A relationship doesn't have to be sexual to be romantic and right now, I'm very up on friendships." Zellweger will be seen later this year starring opposite Kidman and Jude Law in the Civil War drama Cold Mountain. She is waiting to see the a new screenplay for Bridget Jones 2 before she accepts one of several films she has been offered, including the Ron Howard boxing drama Cinderella Man, which would pair her with Russell Crowe. "I would definitely be Bridget Jones again with all that entails," says Zellweger, referring to the 25 lbs she gained for the role. "No one wants to do the sequel unless the screenplay is as good as the first one. We don't want to do a sequel just because the first one made a lot of money. We owe it to the fans of the characters to make as good, if not better, a film the second time around." |