Renee: Will I ever meet Mr Right?

After two assignments as the eternal singleton Bridget Jones, it seems that Renee Zellweger's life is continuing to imitate her art.

Following a series of failed relationships, the 34-year-old American actress fears she might never meet the right man.

Miss Zellweger recently split from Jack White, singer and guitarist with the rock group White Stripes. She says in a candid interview to be published in the New Year that she might never find a long-term partner.

However, she still remains hopeful that she will one day achieve lasting happiness, even if it has to be on her own.

'I'd like to have a home, a place that feels permanently familiar,' she tells Readers Digest magazine. 'I'd like some semblance of family. But I don't have any prerequisites for happiness.

'I never said, "OK by the time I'm this age I will have so many kids".

'I didn't think in my head about the perfect man, the perfect wedding and the perfect life we'd have. Like anything, when it's the right thing to do I'm sure it will present itself. And if it doesn't, well then I don't expect to be less happy.'

The daughter of Swiss and Norwegian immigrants, Miss Zellweger has seen her acting career take off in recent years and is now able to command fees of up to £10million per movie.

But she has found balancing her career with a stable private life a difficult goal to achieve. As a result, she has repeatedly been unsuccessful in her love life, suffering a series of high-profile failed relationships, including those with Jim Carrey and George Clooney.

And after recently enjoying dates with Jack White, the curse of Bridget struck again after she had to leave him in America when she came to Britain to start filming Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason. She had to put on three stone for the movie, which will be released in the middle of next year.

Miss Zellweger - who also starred in Chicago, Jerry Maguire and more recently in Cold Mountain with Jude Law and Nicole Kidman - said she has also learned to accept that she is a bit of a loner.

And she admitted that was something she had known about herself since her college days.

'I retreat a lot, and I did even then. I'm not a real group kind of girl. I'm a pretty private person and I just like to go off and do my own thing.'