Renée Zellweger's Southern Accent Has Left the Internet Feeling Confused

Renée Zellweger won a Golden Globe Award for the Best Actress in a Motion Picture on Jan. 6, 2020. While her remarkable performance and her kindly-worded, beautifully-written acceptance speech garnered loud applause, there was something else about her appearance that caught the attention of the audience.

Renée Zellweger' Southern accent came as a surprise, leading many to express their sense of disbelief via cleverly-worded posts on social media. 

Renée won a Golden Globe Award for her exceptional performance in Rupert Goold's 2019 drama about Judy Garland's last years, titled Judy. 

Although the Texas-born, Los Angeles-based actress made hundreds of public appearances during the height of her career, viewers didn't expect her to use the accent spoken in her hometown during her 2020 Golden Globes acceptance speech. 

"Wow, I'm really up here. Well hi everybody, it's nice to see you! Y'all look pretty good 17 years later," Renée began the speech. 

"Thank you to the HFPA for inviting me back to the family reunion. Especially with all these extraordinary ladies this year. I mean it, your work moves me. It moves me. And I've been cheering for y'all from theatre seats for a long time," she added. 

"Being on a list with you is cool," she said, before thanking her agents, collaborators, friends, and family. 

"You know how Renee Zellweger is the only American who does a good British accent? Well, her 'normal' voice is also a fake accent. She speaks with a big ol’ Texas drawl," opined a fan on Twitter. 

"I thought Joaquin was weird, then Renee Zellweger got on stage," wrote somebody else. 

Renée has an unparalleled expertise in regional dialects, having played characters from just about every walk of life. 

Take the 2019 Judy, which saw the actress pour incredible strength and effort into perfecting Judy Garland's unmistakable intonation, crystal-clear, ultra-sharp vowels, and signature voice. 

As the New York Post reveals, she had to wear fake teeth and a prosthetic nose, while she was also required to spend significant time attending singing classes. The hard work paid off; the actress captured the aging chanteuse's idiosyncrasies with uncanny precision.

Judy is an intimate-feeling biopic shedding light on the best-kept secrets of the medicine-addict diva caught up in financial troubles. Renée delivered an incredible performance, showing the viewers the world-famous singer's many hidden sides. 

However, it was the 2001 Bridget Jones that cemented Renée's reputation as an actress who's incredibly talented when it comes to nailing different accents. 

Sharon Maguire's romantic comedy revolves around a 30-something Londoner with an unshakable penchant for Whitney Houston singalongs and jotting down ad-hoc observations into her trusty diary. The movie allowed Renée to demonstrate how skilled she is when it comes to accents, perfecting the British RP spoken by those working in the media. 

The actress was born in Katy, Texas. Her parents moved to the U.S. from Norway and Switzerland, and their perspective on life shaped her views as well. 

"I very much feel my Texan roots, but there’s no denying that I’m a child of European people," she said in an interview with The Guardian. 

Renée moved to Austin, Texas, to attend college where she studied journalism before taking acting roles on an ad-hoc basis. 

"I consider Austin home, and I have a lot of extended family there, so I get back a lot," she explained.