Renee Zellweger begins shooting ‘Same Kind of Different as Me’

Renee Zellweger’s moment back in the Hollywood limelight continues. The actress has begun shooting Paramount’s faith-based drama “Same Kind of Different as Me,” the studio said Tuesday, and has been joined on the project by Greg Kinnear, Djimon Hounsou and Jon Voight.

The film is based on the nonfiction book by Ron Hall and Denver Moore with Lynn Vincent; Vincent is also the author of “Heaven Is for Real.”

Shooting began Monday in Jackson, Miss., on the movie, which tells the story of an art dealer (Kinnear) who befriends a homeless man (Hounsou) in order to save his struggling relationship with his wife (Zellweger). Voight will play Kinnear’s father. Michael Carney is making his directing debut on the film, which he co-wrote with Hall and Alexander Foard. It’s Kinnear’s second faith-based film in the past year; he starred in this spring’s “Heaven Is for Real,” which has grossed $101 million worldwide.

The “Same Kind” casting news of course comes amid Zellweger’s recent re-emergence. The actress, whose last film was the little-seen 2010 drama “My Own Love Song,” sparked an Internet frenzy last week when she showed up at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards looking very different from how we remembered her.

Zellweger called the freak-out “silly” and noted that everyone’s appearance changes as they get older. Whether her new look becomes a distraction in a movie that will presumably involve some degree of emoting remains to be seen, but moviegoers will have their chance to get reacquainted: Zellweger is next set to appear on the big screen in the courtroom drama “The Whole Truth.”

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