George Clooney Asked Renee Zellweger For Weight Advice  1/30/06

Hollywood hunk George Clooney credits his former love Renee Zellweger with helping him gain enough weight to get into character for new movie Syriana.

The 44-year-old struggled to pile on the required 15.5 kilograms (34 pounds) for his role as middle-aged CIA agent Bob Barnes, and was forced to ask Zellweger, who ballooned to play a plump singleton in Bridget Jones' Diary, for help.

He says, "In the beginning it was fun not being able to get tables at restaurants, but being overweight is horrible for the blood pressure and my back is killing me.

"But you couldn't read this script and not want to be in it."

Clooney and Zellweger were romantically linked in 2001.