Zellweger Triumphs!

After triumphing as a musical heroine in the Oscar winner ``Chicago,'' Renee Zellweger ends her new comedy, ``Down With Love,'' with a song. ``When we did that song I wasn't even supposed to be recording,'' Zellweger said of the duet with her co-star, Ewan McGregor. ``(I was) just singing along and we started playing together. Ewan was in the booth and I was outside and off we went, and it was like the best recess of all time. We laughed out loud and it just felt like a throwback to another era altogether, and they ended up keeping it.''  How appropriate, because the entire film, which opened Friday, is a throwback. In this homage to the 1960s Doris Day-Rock Hudson romantic comedies, Zellweger stars as Barbara Novak, a feminist author new to Manhattan who has published a self-help book for women, ``Down With Love.''  ``Moulin Rouge'' star McGregor plays the dashing, love-'em-and-leave-'em bachelor Catcher Block, who wants to expose Barbara as a hypocrite capable of romance. Zellweger, nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her work in ``Chicago,'' explained why she opted not to sing that film's Oscar-nominated title song at the Academy Awards.  ``I don't regret not doing it,'' she said. She ``loved'' what co-stars Catherine Zeta-Jones, Queen Latifah and the ``Chicago'' dancers did onstage. ``My heart went `Yeah!' but I know myself and my work ethic,'' she said. ``I know I was really tired when I landed back in America in March.''  Zellweger had returned from a lengthy Romanian shoot during which the all-star ``Cold Mountain'' company (Jude Law, Nicole Kidman) re-created Civil War America. ``I would have been there at that theater in my tap shoes, and I wanted that experience (of being a Best Actress nominee) to be something else,'' Zellweger said.  ``I wanted it to be about celebrating rather than preparing. I thought my first-ever live performance in front of real people should not be between commercials and go, go, go. I want to stand and have a moment and breathe and savor that moment, for different reasons. Yeah, it was not the night.''  Since her breakup with her ``Me, Myself & Irene'' leading man Jim Carrey several years ago, Zellweger has avoided discussing her personal life. But when asked if she has ever had a Catcher Block in her life, she harkens to her Texas childhood.  ``At camp when I was 9, I think I met a guy like Catcher. This boy asked me to the camp dance. . . . I had a terrible crush on this boy; he was something. He was probably 10 and what a man,'' she said, laughing.  But, alas, the date never happened.  ``He heard that the really hottie chick who was really older - she must have been ripe at 12 or something, with the big hair and big other things - was interested in him.''  Is she still a romantic? Zellweger, who is contemplating reprising her role as Bridget Jones, smiled and said, ``Even after that traumatic 9-year-old, you know, I completely have faith.''