As ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ Turns 25, Renée Zellweger and Director Sharon Maguire Discuss the Casting Backlash and Creating a New Kind of Rom-Com

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Karla Cote

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Lead actress Renée Zellweger and director Sharon Maguire came together on the Tribeca Film Festival stage, commemorating the barriers they shattered through their collaboration on “Bridget Jones’s Diary” 25 years ago. From the audience, the film’s enduring relevance was unmistakable. The theater burst into enthusiastic cheers as the title card emerged, and multiple waves of applause followed during key scenes—including when Mark (Colin Firth) finally confronts Daniel (Hugh Grant) outside Jones’ apartment.

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Reflecting on why she thinks the movie has continued to connect with audiences, Zellweger said, “Most romantic comedy heroines are polished, and they fit a particular paradigm for beauty in that moment, and this was not the paradigm.” Bridget Jones, essentially, was an everyday woman who “looked like her lifestyle.” Such a portrayal was uncommon in the early 2000s and sparked a change in viewer expectations, as people started to think about the various ways a leading lady could, or should, appear. Zellweger found it equally freeing as the actress in front of the camera.

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“I loved that I could cry, and my mascara could run, and nobody was running in with a little thing to make it not shiny. I could have a runny, snotty nose when I cry, like what happens in real life, you know? And the wind blows, and your hair is messy and nobody’s running in to brush it and make it perfect. I loved it. It was so liberating to play someone who’s having authentic experiences authentically.”

Early in the discussion, moderator H. Alan Scott turned to Maguire to talk about the time between the casting announcement and the film’s release, when British audiences were largely unhappy with Zellweger—a native Texan—portraying the iconic British character. The harsh tabloid criticism, which Maguire described as “quite vicious,” placed considerable pressure on her and left both her and the film’s producers worried about whether Zellweger could master the accent. (She nailed it). Zellweger laughed through Maguire’s account, eventually admitting that she “didn’t know” about the concerns surrounding the project.

As for what continues to resonate with Maguire two and a half decades later, “it’s a movie that celebrates failure.” She acknowledges there’s still plenty of fairy tale mixed with the normalcy, joking that, as a woman in her 30s at the time, she didn’t have Hugh Grant or Colin Firth knocking on her door, but it was ultimately about ordinary people and validated everyday lives; that’s what still makes it unique. The finishing touch, though, is that it was “about a woman, conceived by a woman, and directed by a woman. And heavens, it worked.”

Maguire’s upcoming project, which starts production in three weeks, is an adaptation of Alex Comfort’s 1972 book “The Joy of Sex.” Colin Firth is set to play Dr. Comfort, a scientist and mollusk expert who becomes an overnight sex guru. Maguire also revealed that Julianne Moore and Laura Linney have joined the cast, but didn’t specify which roles the women would take. The film has no release date yet, nor has it been picked up by a distributor.

Bridget Jones,

Renee Zellweger