Big knickers, bad decisions and old bats: Renée Zellweger on the return of Bridget Jones

Mark Darcy is dead. Bridget Jones fans have been grieving since 2013, when Helen Fielding’s third novel, Mad About the Boy, was published sans Bridget’s hot human-rights lawyer husband. The outcry made front page news (as did the copies that were accidentally printed with 40 pages from David Jason’s memoir). People could not believe that romcom’s favourite reindeer-jumper-wearing dish, who proved that – ding dong! – nice men do kiss like that, was no more.

“Someone ran out of the pub shouting: ‘You’ve murdered Colin Firth!’” Fielding says over a video call, tulips arranged on a huge wooden table in the background, as well they should in a boho-posh Primrose Hill kitchen. “I just want to point out that he is fictional. Colin Firth is not dead.”

His reaction after being told over the phone? “‘You’ve murdered the wrong one; it should have been Mrs Grant,’” grins Fielding. Grant plays Firth’s love rival, the publishing scoundrel Daniel Cleaver. “They call each other Mrs Firth and Mrs Grant.”

But how did Renée Zellweger, who has played Bridget for nearly 25 years, feel? “Rotten!” she says, when we meet a few days after Fielding’s call. “I was a crazy person mourning this fictional character. I was weeping. It was also for that shared experience with Colin: seeing him in his suit and beautiful coat, with his briefcase, looking dapper and very Mark Darcy. This is the end … we won’t get to do this any more.”

Today, the only blue thing about Zellweger as she nestles in a Claridge’s hotel suite is her invitingly fluffy jumper, matched with hotel slippers (even double Oscar winners don’t pass on a freebie). She is warm and softly spoken as she pours water for everybody, including her new co-stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Leo Woodall. But she also has a mischievous laugh that can be heard right down the corridor. It erupts surprisingly frequently: when she notices that journalists are eating cookies with her face on them (“I’ve never craved a cookie with my face on it before, but suddenly I do!”), and when Ejiofor explains that I am talking about children’s toys and not sex toys (“I did pause”).

It’s impossible to think of anyone else playing Bridget, but Zellwegger’s Texas twang is a reminder of the scepticism in 2001 that an American could play this British icon. Bridget had started life as the star of Fielding’s “silly” Independent column in 1995, but she quickly became London’s ultimate thirtysomething singleton, as readers followed her urban family’s chardonnay-fuelled antics.

The column took swipes at what society expected women to be (“You career girls! Can’t put it off forever, you know: tick-tock-tick-tock,” Aunt Una tells her, at a tarts-and-vicars party). The column became a bestselling book series and then a film franchise, in which Zellweger perfectly captured Bridget’s everywoman essence, as she dodged “smug marrieds”, dealt with “fuckwits” and navigated relationships with Daniel (who told her: “Like your tits in that top”) and Mark (who told her: “I like you just the way you are”).

Back then, Zellweger said that she related to Bridget’s struggles with the social pressure on women to get married and have children. She is adamant that things have changed since: “To choose not to have children isn’t that exceptional, is it? I think it’s quite common.”

What would she say to her thirtysomething self now? “Girl, slow down. Moving from place to place, constantly living out of your suitcase – I never unpacked until I was probably 41.” It explains why she took a six-year hiatus in 2010; still, she says she doesn’t regret it. “There was a lot to treasure.” That said, during that period, she adds: “I scrutinised myself. And because I wasn’t taking care of myself in my 30s, I didn’t make great choices all the time … It’s really easy to forget yourself in the mix.”

Here she is, then, ahead of the London premiere of the fourth film (2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby wasn’t based on a novel). Bridget and Mark had two children, got married and lived happily ever after … for a while. Now, Bridget is a widow and looking after Billy and Mabel. Unlike the other films, Mad About the Boy is a tear-jerking exploration of grief. But Bridget also experiences the joys and struggles of being a single mother. “She loves the children just as they are, in the way that Mark said: ‘I love you just as you are.’ Those two children know that and they share her playfulness,” says Fielding. But now, she is ready to take the next steps – ie have sex with someone. She writes in her diary: “Bridget Jones, it’s time to live.”

It is the chapter in Bridget’s life that is closest to Fielding’s own, says Zellweger. Kevin Curran, Fielding’s ex-partner and father of her two children, died of cancer in 2016, the same year that her friend Carrie Fisher died. Fielding started writing the screenplay during the pandemic, when loss was even more palpable. “I wanted to show how you can feel both a sense of humour and a sense of perspective – your friends, your community, your resilience can get you through these things and you can still laugh,” she says.

The good times roll as Bridget returns to her hotshot TV producer job, drinks blue cocktails (a throwback to her infamous blue soup disaster) and meets toyboy Roxster (Woodall) on Tinder (“Bridget isn’t going to be anyone’s old bat,” says Fielding). It is joyous to see a fiftysomething mother enjoying a whirlwind of romance and sex – even if a child’s doll left in the bed gets in the way (“How did that happen?” asks Roxster. “I used protection”). There’s even a sexy swimming pool scene: Roxster dives in to save a tiny dog and – in a nod to Mark – rips off his wet white shirt. “I felt some pressure for that day, because I knew that it was all about kind of being ogled,” says Woodall. “What if I was un-ogle-able?”

“It’s not a bad job, is it?” adds Zellweger. “It’s not a bad day at work.”

Another potential new love comes in the form of Billy’s science teacher, Mr Wallaker (Ejiofor). He is stern and sensible, but intrigued by Bridget’s free-spiritedness; he ends up ripping his top off, too. Is this the Captain Von Trapp that Bridget has been dreaming about all this time? “That’s great!” Zellweger squeals. “Maybe they should have run over the hill together?” Ejiofor adds.

This is Oscar-nominee Ejiofor’s first time as the romantic lead, but given that he once said love is “as vital as breathing”, and was chivalrous enough to move my heavy chair closer to the interview circle, the schmaltz has been inside him all along. “I’ve been sitting there quietly, patiently waiting,” he says, laughing.

And yet Bridget still needs to defend her decisions – as in her 30s, she feels like “a duck out of water” at a dinner party where the other guests are smug marrieds. It suggests that women can’t win, that even widows are social outsiders. But in the film, when the men make comments such as: “Still on your own?” and: “You’re still in good nick,” mouthy mate Shazza (Sally Phillips) shuts them up. “What we’re showing is that women can win and smug marrieds have got to stop asking intrusive questions like that,” says Fielding of the scene. “There is no one way to live.”

Bridget has inspired these discussions ever since Fielding first put pen to paper. Some women celebrate Bridget’s candour about her calorie-, work- and romance-related anxieties; others find those obsessions anti-feminist. “In the first book, there is the line: ‘There is nothing so unattractive to a man as strident feminism,’ which was an ironic joke,” Fielding says. “But if you’re not a fan of humour and irony, that is going to annoy you.”

One thing that everyone agrees on is that there is no male equivalent of Bridget, someone who expresses men’s anxieties and aspirations. James Bond, I suggest. “But do guys see themselves as Bond after leaving the cinema?” asks Ejiofor.

Given how critical some of the response to Bridget has been, it may be surprising that Zellweger – who in 2016 penned an excellent essay on the tabloids’ sexist fixation with her appearance – thinks the sheer volume of the discourse is positive. “Isn’t that a cool thing that Helen created this character that people want to talk about for 30 years?” she says. “I think people see themselves in her imperfections, vulnerability and fear. Her authenticity and transparent humanity make it easy for folks to feel that ‘I know her’.” As for the bad stuff? “I don’t know anything about that, because I don’t look for it.”

Anyway, there are more urgent things to discuss, such as where are Bridget’s massive knickers? Zellweger recently said the rumour is that Grant took them home.

Grant does return in Bridget’s life, fans will be relieved to know, after going missing in the third film. This time, Daniel is Bridget’s babysitter, but still trying it on with nurses in his 60s. But Grant also insisted on rewriting his backstory to include an estranged son. “I think if he had just been walking up and down Kings Road chatting up girls for 24 years, it would have been hard to endure him,’ he told Vanity Fair.

How does such a badly behaved character remain so endearing? “That’s the Hugh Grant magic right there,” says Zellweger. “Even though he’s dastardly, you can’t help but love him.”

But does Grant have the knickers? “Someone told me they were signed and sold,” says Zellweger. “Maybe he’ll wear them to the premiere?” laughs Ejiofor. Or perhaps they are part of a random film fan’s private collection, I suggest.

The awkward silence is a deathly way to end things. “Sorry,” I say, in an excruciating Bridget moment.

• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is released on 13 February