Bridget Jones's Daniel Cleaver has not "joined the times" as Hugh Grant makes big return

Now, Grant has returned as the (sometimes) loveable rogue in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, which sees the title character return to the dating scene four years after the tragic loss of her true love Mark Darcy (Colin Firth).

This time around Daniel is no longer considered as a romantic suitor for Bridget, but the pair have kept in contact and he is seen to have a close relationship with her kids, whom he often babysits. But although he might have matured in some ways, he's still very much the same man we knew all those years ago.

"Well, we wanted him to be Daniel," director Michael Morris told RadioTimes.com in an exclusive interview. "That was the first thing. [And] we were fortunate, especially with that character, because he skipped a movie, so we haven't seen him in a long time, so we could really have presented him in whatever way. But it was very important to us that he was Daniel."

He added: "And if you notice, in the film he has a flip phone he uses, like, he's not someone who's sort of come [and] joined the times, you know. He drives an old car, he's a vintage person.

"And he has an arc in this film where we see him in a different light during the film. So there's room for him to grow in his own way as well. But yeah, it was important to have Daniel."

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As for Bridget herself, Morris said it was a fascinating experience to "discover" the character in "a brand new part of her life" as a widowed mother-of-two.

"We had to have a history of what Bridget the mum looks like versus Bridget the singleton we know," he said. "And to watch Bridget – I call her Bridget, not Renee, it's funny that isn't it? – to watch Bridget interact with the children and make them so comfortable, and basically imbue the house set that we had with love.

"Because we all understood that Bridget leads with love. So their house would be full of love, whether they're yelling at each other, 'You're late, come on,' whatever the scene was, there has to be within that a protective shell of that love she built on set. She's so wonderful with them, and they all felt like a family very, very quickly. So that was pretty special."

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is released in UK cinemas on Thursday 13th February 2025.

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