Renée Zellweger reveals "surprisingly sad" part of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
The double Oscar winner is returning for a fourth outing as the iconic singleton.
Over her career, Renée Zellweger has appeared in all manner of major movies – winning two Academy Awards in the process – but there's no doubt that the role for which she's most well known is Bridget Jones, who she first played more than 20 years ago in 2001's Bridget Jones's Diary.
It's a character she's now returned to for a fourth outing – her first film credit since winning the second of those aforementioned Oscars for 2019's Judy – with Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy set to land in UK cinemas on Thursday 13th February, just in time for Valentine's Day.
Although audiences can expect plenty more of the joyful hijinks and slapstick shenanigans we've come to expect from this franchise, the new film also has a profound emotional core, picking up with Bridget four years after the death of her true love Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) on a humanitarian mission in Sudan.
And speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com, Zellweger revealed one aspect of making the film that she found "surprisingly sad".
"Several times, all in one day, we'd sort of swing from one extreme to the other in the different scenes that might be paired on the schedule," she explained.
"It was interestingly emotional for different reasons, because the content of the material is quite touching and sad at times, but also because some of the characters are going away.
"And that was a sad thing to have to accept, even as an actor, because this means no longer continuing the journey with a really dear friend. And that was really surprisingly sad, you know. But ultimately, I think it's more hopeful than anything."
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The emotion of making the film clearly carried through to Zellweger's experience of watching it, and she admitted that she ended up having one regret after seeing the film at its London premiere – she didn't bring more tissues!
"I was busy making the most of the tissue, the one tissue that I brought into the cinema," she said. "It's not like I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I found myself tearing up the whole time."
She added: "It's always fun to have a shared experience like that. And it was so nice to see it for the first time with a theatre full of people. It was really very special."
Read more:
- Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy review – May just be the best one to date
- Bridget Jones's new toy-boy Leo Woodall feels "vulnerable and exposed" by heartthrob status
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is released in UK cinemas on Thursday 13th February 2025.
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Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.