So how did Renee do it?

Pressed for time during my brief stay in New York three weeks ago, I didn’t get a chance to watch a Broadway play (The Producers, topbilling Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, would have been a nice choice) but I made it a point to watch Renee Zellweger’s latest movie, Bridget Jones’s Diary based upon Helen Fielding’s best-selling comic diary about a calorie- and man-obsessed Londoner (played by Zellweger, yes).

I was curious how the sexy Zellweger put on 20 pounds for the role (one scene shows her in short shorts, wriggling her butt in extreme close-up... can you imagine!?!) and how she again lost them. With those extra poundage, Zellweger still looked smashing, although she did look better — and more desirable — without them (remember her as Tom Cruise’s wife in Jerry Maguire?).

I wonder how Jim Carrey, whom Zellweger had made very, very unhappy and very, very despondent by turning his marriage proposal, felt when he saw — if he ever did — his "heavier" former girlfriend in the Jones flick? Did he, even for a moment, regain his self-esteem?

Bridget Jones’s Diary is one movie you shouldn’t miss as soon as it hits Metro Manila theaters. It’s very entertaining, fun to watch (no wonder it got good reviews) and I think Zellweger acts even better in this movie than she did in Nurse Betty for which she got several Best Supporting Actress nominations (and won a trophy, in fact).

After watching the movie at a Manhattan theater, I rushed to the nearest newsstand and looked for a magazine featuring Zellweger. Sure enough, she was in a new issue of US Weekly which carried an article on "Me and Ms. Jones" and a sidebar on how she gained and lost those 20 pounds.

And here, reprinted from US Weekly is the "untold story" (for the benefit of Funfare readers who have a similar "20-pound" problem), titled How She Changed Her Body:

"I didn’t get fat, I got a different body," Zellweger said recently of her transformation into Bridget Jones. The five-foot-five actor, who normally weighs about 100 to 110 pounds, put on 15 to 20 pounds; "It varied depending on the shooting schedule," she says.

To gain the weight, Zellweger says, she stopped exercising completely and followed a "really well-planned diet in terms of nutritional balance put together by a physician and a nutritionist." That meant she ordered garlic bread with her pizza and snacked on candy bars, and in keeping with Bridget’s fondness for "alcohol units," she wasn’t adverse to having occasional pint of Guinness or glass of red wine. "They didn’t only feed me Snickers bars for nine months," says the actor. "It just happened to have a lot of fat and a much higher caloric count than I usually consume in a day."

To take the weight off, Zellweger says, she merely reversed the process, eliminating high-fat foods and calories from her diet and starting to run again, which she now does almost every day. "It’s my alone time, I depend on it," she says of the therapeutic jogs she takes with her 13-year-old collie-Lab, Dylan. "It’s just been a part of my life since I can remember. It’s like my Dumpster. When I’m frustrated, I think it out by pounding it into the cement."

Easy does it? Try it yourself!

Look what cell call did to Niki

You must have missed it in the wire dispatches but in New York also three weeks ago, Supermodel Niki Taylor was on the headlines because of a freak accident that nearly cost her life. It’s an incident from which we can all learn a good lesson, especially since you and I, admit it, can’t resist answering the cell phone when it rings while we’re driving.

It’s a big no-no as you will see in Niki’s tragic experience.

In the early morning hours of April 29, Niki and a friend were being driven home by another friend from a night on the town when the (driver’s) cell rang. The driver reflexively reached for the cell, taking his eyes off the road by just a few seconds. The next thing they knew, the 1993 Nissan Maxima they were riding jumped the curb and hit a utility pole.

The two guys sustained only minor bruises. At first, Niki thought she was just badly shaken, with her famous face saved with nary a scratch. A little later, she was doubling up in pain. It turned out that she suffered from massive internal injuries, with her liver badly damaged, that landed her at the ICU of a nearby hospital where for days Niki fought for her life. Let’s hope she’s out of danger now.

The accident put into sharp focus a fast-growing problem not only in the US but in other parts of the world, the Philippines included, and that is "talking on the phone while driving."

It happened to Niki Taylor and it could happen to anyone of us — that is, if we aren’t careful.

In some countries, there are laws (same here, I think) that penalizes people who talk on the phone while driving. Funfare hopes the authorities are enforcing that law strictly, for the good and safety of everybody.