Renee Zellweger reunites with Hugh Grant at Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy premiere
Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant have reunited on the red carpet at the UK premiere of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
Zellweger and Grant were all smiles at the premiere, posing together for photos and mingling with fans lined up around Leicester Square in central London last night.
Joining them were returning co-stars Jim Broadbent and Gemma Jones, who play Bridget’s parents, as well as Emma Thompson, James Callis, Celia Imrie and Shirley Henderson. Newcomers to the franchise include Leo Woodall, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nico Parker and Isla Fisher, who were also in the cast photo from the event.
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The fourth instalment in the Bridget Jones movies series comes 24 years after the original hit film, adapted from Helen Fielding’s popular novel, which was inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Due to be released in Australia on February 13, Mad About the Boy finds Bridget as a 51-year-old widow with two kids after Mark Darcy’s death between the third and fourth films. Fielding killed off Mark in her 2013 novel of the same name, much to the heartbreak of many fans.
Colin Firth wasn’t expected to be in the film but he was snapped by paparazzi on the set in mid-2024. The character was then seen in the trailer but, given Mark’s demise, it’s likely to be flashbacks or fantasy sequences.
Bridget is back in the dating world and among the suitors are Mr Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a teacher at her kids’ school, and Roxster (Leo Woodall), a much younger love interest.
The movie also marks the return of Grant’s Daniel Cleaver. The love rat character was not in the previous film, Bridget Jones’ Baby. Bringing Daniel back required some retconning as it was suggested he had died in a plane crash.
In a Vanity Fair interview, Grant said he thought Fielding’s Mad About the Boy novel was the best Bridget Jones book but he had a hand in crafting Daniel’s onscreen return.
“I loved the script – it made me cry, and I wanted to help with this one,” he told VF. “But really there’s no part of Daniel Cleaver in it at all. They wanted him in it, and in the end, they’d done something I wasn’t crazy about.”
So, Grant wrote some scenes which the filmmakers incorporated into the final screenplay.
But don’t expect Daniel to have a huge part in the film. Grant said he wasn’t in the film “a lot” and he only spent a week filming it, but promised audiences they would be moved.
Australian fans will have the opportunity to get close to the stars at a premiere in Sydney. Zellweger, Ejiofor, Woodall and director Michael Morris are all confirmed to walk the red carpet at the Entertainment Quarter.
Sally Phillips, who plays Bridget’s friend Shaz, will also be at the Sydney premiere. She is already in Australia filming the second season of ABC series Austin.
Zellweger , 55, sparked speculation she is engaged to her boyfriend Ant Anstead, 45, at the UK premiere.
She wore a pink Pierre Balmain haute couture gown from 2000 was spotted wearing a Band-Aid on her ring finger.
Of course, it is possible the actress has simply cut her finger, given she also wore the same Band-Aid to a premiere in Paris on Monday night.
But fans have suspected Ms Zellweger and Anstead – a British TV presenter – might be engaged after they started dating in 2021. In a recent interview, Zellweger told British Vogue she had settled in Southern California to be with “my fellow” Anstead and his young son.
