It’s time to dust off your biggest and comfiest pants, cook up some blue soup and warm up your pipes for a Céline Dion sing-a-long because a very special anniversary is just around the corner.
This month marks 25 years since Bridget Jones made her big screen debut, diary in hand, introducing the world to one of 21st century British cinema’s most iconic and beloved characters.
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Bridget Jones’s Diary has gone on to become one of the most enduring and game-changing romantic comedies of its time, going on to gross hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, spawn three sequels and even earn its leading lady Renée Zellweger her first Oscar nominations (she’s since gone on to win two, as it goes).
A quarter-century later, you might think you know Bridget inside and out (and love her “just as she is”), but we bet there’s still plenty about the enduring movie classic that you still don’t know.
To commemorate its 25th anniversary, here are 25 behind-the-scenes facts you probably never knew about how Bridget Jones’s Diary was made…
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Alright, we’re starting with a pretty obvious one here, but for those who didn’t know, both the original novel Bridget Jones’s Diary and the movie were inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice
Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding said back in 2001: “Jane Austen’s plots are very good and have been market researched over a number of centuries so I decided simply to steal one of them.”
“I thought she wouldn’t mind,” Helen quipped. “And anyway, she’s dead.”
Because of the book’s ties to Pride And Prejudice, the Bridget Jones team were always adamant that Mark Darcy should be played by Colin Firth, who previously appeared in the BBC’s much-loved adaptation of the Jane Austen book
“Colin always had to be Mark Darcy,” producer Eric Fellner put it around the film’s release. “As the story unfolds, and the audience comes to understand Mark Darcy, he transforms from a seemingly snobby and cold intellectual into a thoughtful and sensitive man.”
Colin Firth as Mr Darcy years before he’d play his character’s namesake in Bridget Jones’s Diary
Moviestore/Shutterstock
There is another Pride & Prejudice reference hidden in Bridget Jones’s Diary that we’re only clocking now 25 years later
The publishing house where Bridget Jones works is called Pemberley Press, a subtle nod to Mr Darcy’s estate in the Austen classic.
When Bridget walks in on the woman that Daniel Cleaver has been cheating on her with, she’s covering herself with a Pemberley Press portfolio, sporting an image of a stately home not unlike Darcy’s.
There are more Pride & Prejudice references than you might realise in Bridget Jones’s Diary
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When it came to casting the role of Bridget Jones, Renée Zellweger wasn’t actually the first choice
In fact, the role first went to Toni Collette, who turned it down because she was appearing in a Broadway play at the time filming was due to get underway.
She told Watch What Happens Live in 2023: “I have no regrets – life happens as it’s meant to.”
The casting process apparently took around two years before producers found their Bridget in Renée Zellweger.
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Of course, the decision to cast an American actor as such an iconic Londoner wasn’t exactly met with unanimous praise, but Renée pulled it out of the bag and won over her detractors in the end.
Toni Collette was originally picked to play Bridget Jones before Renée Zellweger was cast
via Associated Press
To help perfect her British twang to play Bridget Jones, Renée Zellweger worked with the famous dialect coach Barbara Berkery
Right before Renée worked with Barbar Berkery, the dialect coach had helped Gwyneth Paltrow on her way to winning an Oscar for Shakespeare In Love.
Before that, she’d also coached Gwynnie while she was playing a Londoner in the 90s classic Sliding Doors.
It’s fair to say that Hugh Grant wasn’t initially convinced by Renée Zellweger’s Bridget Jones accent…
After the suggestion that she “loosen it up a bit”, Hugh claimed that Renée’s next attempt was more “Princess Margaret having a stroke – but a week later, it was bang on”.
Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant in character as Bridget Jones and Daniel Cleaver
Alex Bailey/Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
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To help retain her accent, Renée Zellweger continued speaking in Bridget Jones’ voice even between takes
Sally Phillips once told Lorraine: “I’d made quite good friends with her during the filming [but] I realised towards the end, when she suddenly lost a stone in the last week, and started talking in a Texan accent at the wrap party, I’d made friends with Bridget, not Renée.”
It’s well-documented that Renée Zellweger intentionally gained weight to help her play Bridget Jones, which she did by increasing her food intake and not exercising
For the second Bridget Jones film, Renée opted for prosthetics rather than gaining the weight back, and by the third and fourth films, it was decided that the actor and her on-screen counterpart should be the same size.
As well as her accent and weight gain, Renée Zellweger also got into the Bridget Jones mindset by working a brief internship at a publishing house
Like her character, Renée Zellweger did some work at a publishing house to help her prepare for Bridget Jones’s Diary
Paul Chedlow/Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
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“A young work experience woman came into the office and introduced herself as Bridget and we were all a bit bemused by the fact that Bridget seemed to have really nice clothes (not smart, just a lot better than our outfits) and a transatlantic accent,” Mary Mount – who was working as an editorial assistant at Picador at the time – recalled last year. “I thought she looked vaguely familiar but in that way that you can’t really place.”
One of the future Oscar winner’s tasks was cutting out any press clippings about Picardo at the time.
Unfortunately, the big story surrounding Picador at the time was the fact that a Bridget Jones movie was in the works, meaning “her job was literally to cut out nasty articles about herself”.
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“She kept her cool,” said Camilla Elworthy, who oversaw Renée during her work experience. “But [she] did scribble ‘rubbish’ in the margins of one piece.”
As for the rest of the Bridget Jones’s Diary cast, Hugh Grant actually turned down the part of Daniel Cleaver on several occasions
Colin Firth, Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant in promotional material for Bridget Jones’s Diary
Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
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“The only reason for that was because I didn’t feel they had the script quite right for a long time,” he admitted in the lead-up to its release. “And I kept saying, it’s not working. Just get Richard Curtis to come in and help rewrite it.”
Hugh had already worked with Richard Curtis on Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, with the two later reuniting on Love Actually and the second Bridget Jones movie.
“As soon as Richard came on board, I signed on the dotted line,” the Bafta winner added. “So, that’s all it was.”
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Bridget Jones’s Diary was filmmaker Sharon Maguire’s feature-length directing debut, although she did already have a connection to the source material
Sharon was close friends with Helen Fielding, and was heavily rumoured to be have been the inspiration for “Shazzer”, the character played on screen by Sally Phillips.
“I’m delighted to be in the book, especially as Shazzer is so much wittier than me,” Sharon once told The Telegraph. “The only thing is that you go to parties and you worry that people will expect you to be funnier than you really are.”
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“Helen was just writing about our lives – hilariously,” she later told the LA Times in 2016, adding: “Thirtysomethings had come out of long relationships in their 20s and realised they hadn’t ended up married or with children. We were in our 30s, behaving like we were 17-year-olds and having a great time but still floundering around asking questions about relationships, careers, biological clocks.”
Sally Phillips has played “Shazzer” in all four Bridget Jones movies
Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
Salman Rushdie’s Bridget Jones’s Diary cameo came about he, too, was a friend of Helen Fielding
“For me, it was very simple,” he told Texas Monthly in 2001. “Helen Fielding, the author of the book, is an old pal of mine, and she asked if I’d come along and make a fool of myself, and I said, ‘Why not?’.”
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As for sharing the screen with the movie’s leading lady, the author added: “Renée was wonderful, I thought, and at the premiere we had a little joke. I told her that my performance is what held the film together – and she agreed. She thought it was a pivotal role.”
The exterior of Bridget Jones’ flat was a pub just off Borough market
The Globe Tavern, to be exact, which was already notable as it’s rumoured to be the location where the Great Train Robbery of 1963 was planned.
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All those wintery scenes at Bridget Jones’ parents’ home were actually shot at the height of summer
Because of this, several locations in Snowshill, Worcestershire had to be covered in fake snow to make the setting more believable.
Bridget Jones’s Diary might put you in a wintery mood but it was actually shot at the height of summer
Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
As a result – Colin Firth didn’t exactly have the best time filming in his infamous Bridget Jones reindeer jumper…
Colin told Entertainment Weekly in 2020: “The set was lit at about 140 degrees Fahrenheit; it melted candles and desiccated the turkey curry. I almost tore the jumper to pieces pulling it off between takes – I probably lost about 15 pounds. I had little love for it by the end.”
…not that it actually is a reindeer, mind you
“We sent out the knitting challenge to approximately 20 or 30 knitters,” Sharon Morgan also told Entertainment Weekly for the same piece. “At first, none of the designs worked. They were lovely, but they just weren’t funny. So eventually we decided it had to be a moose, not a reindeer.”
“I never noticed it was a moose,” Colin added.
Not a reindeer jumper but a moose, apparently
Moviestore/Shutterstock
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Daniel Cleaver and Mark Darcy’s fight sequence is one of Bridget Jones’s Diary’s stand-out scenes – but it could have looked very different
“There had been an earlier idea to make the fight look sexy,” Colin told the LA Times. “We were going to be buff and our shirts were going to be ripped off.
“I looked at myself and said, ‘You’re certainly never going to get that type with me’.”
Colin Firth and Hugh Grant decided between them to keep their Bridget Jones fight a little more… well… British
Colin Firth and Hugh Grant’s characters have it out in Bridget Jones’s Diary
Alex Bailey/Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
“We both realised that the last time we fought was when we were 10. A playground fight,” Colin quipped. “So, we made a decision largely based on logic and common sense to make it more playful.”
He pointed out the characters are “two very ineffectual, frightened, angry yuppies going at each other – pulling hair and wanting to run away at the same time”, which needed to come across on screen.
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During a video interview with Vanity Fair, Hugh later claimed: “The big fight was to stop stuntmen getting involved. They always want to come in and choreograph the whole thing and say, ‘mate, it’d be great if you swing a right hook and his head’ll go back’.
“I just thought, ‘yeah, in action films, cowboy films, whatever, that’s great, but these are two middle-class Englishmen, and they don’t fight like that’. I’ve seen them fight, and it’s shit.
“So, we managed to ban the stuntman. I think the last thing he contributed was probably the dustbin lid, and after that, it’s just me and Colin messing about.”
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Stuntmen were used for one crucial part of the fight, though
That’d be the bit where Mark and Daniel fly through the front window of a Greek restaurant, which they thought they’d better leave to the pros.
By contrast, Bridget Jones’ infamous fireman’s pole scene was meticulously planned to ensure Renée Zellweger’s safety
Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones throwing herself into her new job at Sit Up Britain
Moviestore/Shutterstock
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“Renée did it on wires – it was her backside that came down,” stunt performer Dani Biernet told Time Out in 2017. “But I did all the lining up and the wide shots without a wire.”
Another of Bridget Jones’ more surprising physical moments required a stunt double, too
Dani also had to step in to play Bridget during the moment when she drunkenly tumbles out of a black cab.
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“When I first did it they were all like, ‘Bloody hell, did that hurt?’. But as a stunt person, you learn how to fall,” she said.
“I remember doing it about six times and, to be fair, by take five you’re a bit bruised. But that’s part of the job.”
No, Renée Zellweger didn’t really have to smoke all those cigarettes on the set of Bridget Jones’s Diary
While it was once commented that Bridget “smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish and dresses like her mother”, fortunately Renée didn’t quite need to copy her character’s habits.
Instead, the cigarettes she was supplied to play Bridget were herbal, rather than tobacco-based.
You might not realise it but Bridget Jones’s Diary has a different ending depending on where in the world you’re watching
Renée Zellweger’s Bridget Jones and Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy get their happy ending in the first movie
Alex Bailey/Miramax/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock
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Here in the UK, after Bridget and Mark’s big kiss, the credits roll and we’re treated to scenes of different characters being interviewed about their love story, while Robbie Williams’ rendition of Have You Met Miss Jones? plays.
Across the pond, though, the credits are interspersed with “home video footage” of Bridget and Mark as kids, recreating the paddling pool scene we hear so much about over the course of the film.
As for the fate of Bridget Jones’ iconic ‘big pants’…
“I heard some rumour that Hugh Grant kept the pants – the big pants,” Renée Zellweger told British Vogue while promoting the fourth Bridget Jones movie in 2024.
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“But I don’t know if that’s true,” she quickly clarified. “We’ll have to ask him.”
Bridget Jones’s Diary is currently available to stream on Now.
Bridget Jones fans, who suffered a Hugh-Grant-free third movie, will be glad to see the Daniel Cleaver actor rightfully reunited with Renée Zellweger for the premiere of the fourth movie in the beloved franchise.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy will hit cinemas on 14 February (Valentine’s Day) this year, almost a decade and a half after the first movie’s 2001 release.
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Earlier this week, the iconic pair appeared on the red carpet of the newest instalment’s premiere.
Hugh Grant, left, and Renee Zellweger pose for photographers upon arrival at the screening for the film ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’
via Associated Press
The Paris appearance may have been a little familiar to diehard Bridget Jones fans.
Hugh’s half-opened shirt (no tie, naturally) under a black jacket is reminiscent of his very first Bridget Jones premiere appearance, while Renée Zellweger’s one-shoulder Saint Laurent dress could well have been an homage to her also-black, also-peekaboo 2001 movie gown.
Colin Firth, Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant at 2001’s Bridget Jones Premiere
Justin Goff via Getty Images
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The 2025 movie will see Bridget navigate “life as a widow and single mom with the help of her family, friends, and former lover Daniel,” an official synopsis says.
“Back to work and on the apps, she’s pursued by a younger man and maybe – just maybe – her son’s science teacher.”
Hugh Grant previously shared on The Graham Norton Show that the newest movie is “very, very sad,” but added it’s also “good and moving”.
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He continued to share that despite there being “no obvious role” for his character, he was “crammed in” to the movie regardless.
All we can say is, thank the rom-com gods for that.
During the chat, Renée was shown a photo from the 2005 Oscars, a year after her first win, where she presented the award for Best Supporting Actor to Morgan Freeman.
Looking at a photo of her red carpet ensemble, the two-time Oscar winner revealed that her night at that year’s ceremony involved a comedy of errors that could have been lifted straight from a Bridget Jones movie.
“As we were leaving that night, a gentleman stepped on the train [of my dress], and I kept walking in the other direction, and it ripped it right off my dress, from right beneath my booty,” she recalled with a laugh.
Renée continued: “There were parties and things afterwards, but I needed to go home and do a little bit of a costume change.”
Unfortunately, when she got there, she realised she’d come to the Oscars without taking her house key with her, leaving her “climbing up the balcony to the second floor” so she could enter through a bathroom window – all while still wearing her ruined dress “with a hole under my booty”.
Read Renée Zellweger’s full British Vogue interview here.
