Zellweger recalls shock at Grant ‘Bridget’ casting spotlight

Zellweger says – At a Tribeca Festival Q&A marking the 25th anniversary of “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” Renée Zellweger said it was “so liberating” to play a woman whose appearance wasn’t treated like a fixable problem. She also described meeting Hugh Grant as “awkward,” saying he

Renée Zellweger remembers a moment that sounds like it could have happened off-script: she walked into a pub after rehearsal, tried to speak, and couldn’t get the words out. Hugh Grant watched her struggle—and, she says, he was “really shocked” when he heard she could “put a sentence together!”

The confession came during a Tribeca Festival Q&A on June 12 for the 25th anniversary of “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” where the Oscar winner looked back on how the film’s attention once landed less on Bridget’s inner life than on her body.

In 2001. Mark Darcy told Bridget Jones that he liked her “just as she is.” Twenty-five years later. the rom-com remains durable for one reason Zellweger still credits: it digs into a woman’s interior life while tracking the love triangle between Bridget (Zellweger). Mark (Colin Firth). and Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant).

But when the movie first arrived, Bridget’s figure became the loudest headline. Zellweger gained nearly 20 pounds to play a character who “drinks often and exercises intermittently.” A New York Post article at the time called her a “heroine with cellulite” who was “more fabulous than flabulous.”

Roughly three years later, the same kind of framing followed the 2004 sequel, “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.” Headlines from CBS News and The Guardian used phrases like “packing on pounds” and “fattens up” when describing Zellweger’s preparation.

At the Q&A, journalist H. Alan Scott pushed back hard on that chatter, calling the tabloid discussion “ridiculous” and asking, “Why the hell were we so stupid to think that Bridget Jones was plus-size?”

Zellweger agreed with Scott’s anger and turned it into something like relief—because her role changed her relationship to scrutiny. Joining director Sharon Maguire onstage. Zellweger said. “What you said is so true.” She traced the fixation to how romantic-comedy heroines are often expected to fit “a particular paradigm for beauty in that moment.”.

Bridget, she said, didn’t fit that mold because Bridget wasn’t trying to.

“Bridget was a normal girl and she looked like her lifestyle. She liked to have an extra helping, and she liked her chardonnay. She didn’t go the gym every day, and she’s gorgeous anyway.”

Because Bridget is “so very herself,” Zellweger said, the character “broke a norm.” When people talk about Bridget’s weight, she added, “there’s nothing here to fix.”

That shift mattered to Zellweger personally and professionally. She called it “so liberating” to play someone like Bridget—someone not defined in the way the industry often defines women on screen. without having to worry about “things like pimples. messy hair or smudged mascara.” She also tied the endurance of the story to the fact that it didn’t treat appearance as the main event.

“Because Bridget is so very herself, that makes her more attractive,” she said, before adding a broader point about what the character made audiences accept. “She shifted our expectations of what a leading lady can look like.”

The ripple effect stayed with her after four films, including last year’s “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.” Zellweger said the question she still gets most about the franchise is, essentially, what it meant to people.

“It changed my life. in terms of sharing something in common with people everywhere in the world who love that character. ” she said. “That was really surprising to me. Making the film, I don’t think we thought it would have that effect in the long run. Everyone shares their Bridget Jones stories with you – it’s a huge blessing, really.”.

That tone—relief meeting disbelief—also appeared when Maguire looked back on the beginning of the franchise. She recalled the initial “outrage” over the casting of Zellweger, a Texas native, as the beloved British TV producer. Maguire also revisited the casting of the films’ leading men, noting their nicknames for each other: “Mrs. Firth” and “Mrs. Grant.”.

Zellweger said she was especially starstruck by Grant when she met him. The two-time Oscar winner described being captivated watching him in 1991’s “Impromptu.”

“He was hot then,” Scott said.

“He’s hot now!” Zellweger insisted, laughing.

Then she told the story of meeting him in person: “I’m a huge fan of Hugh!. I was so awkward and stuttering and terrified to meet him. We sat at a pub after rehearsal the first day and I couldn’t say a word. Honestly. I think he thought I was Bridget Jones – I think he was really shocked when he heard I could put a sentence together!”.

The sequence of facts doesn’t soften the tension—it sharpens it. The same actress who was publicly defined by weight and preparation also described a role that made her feel freer. while the actor she met through the franchise expected. for reasons she never quite found flattering. that she would resemble the character she was playing.

Renée Zellweger Hugh Grant Bridget Jones's Diary Tribeca Festival 25th anniversary Sharon Maguire Colin Firth Hugh Grant meeting Bridget Jones body scrutiny