Of people the filmmakers considered a slew of actresses for the relation of Bridget Jones portion writer Helen Fielding worked connected adapting her publication into a diagnostic movie with chap writers Andrew Davies, who successfully turned Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice into the 1995 BBC miniseries that inspired the full saga in the archetypal place, and rom-com wizard Richard Curtis.

In December 1999, the front-runners were reportedly Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Emily Watson and Rachel Weisz. Other names that popped up arsenic contenders included Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter and Toni Collette, who's said to person turned down the relation due to the fact that she was successful a Broadway play astatine the time. (The Wild Party ran from April 13 to June 11, 2000, and filming didn't statesman until August, but presumably she thought the amusement mightiness tally a tad longer.)

But as Hugh Grant would accidental successful astir each movie he made in the '90s, "Riiiiiiight..."

There was rather the uproar when Renée Zellweger, adorable lil' histrion from Texas, was formed arsenic the beloved British character.

"I've ne'er met Renée, but I'm told she's precise comic and learning to talk English with an English alternatively than Texas accent," Fielding, who seemingly did not person last say, commented in May 2000. But erstwhile the movie was made, it was evident that the understandably protective writer had travel around.

"Initially I was precise touched by the information that the full British federation seemed to spell up successful arms similar a headless chicken," she recalled successful a 2001 interview. "And I thought, well, that shows they're precise fond of Bridget, that they were conscionable so indignant the she wasn't being played by an Englishwoman. I deliberation it's due that it's an planetary figure—and anyway, Scarlet O'Hara was played by an Englishwoman, truthful I deliberation the Americans are getting their revenge now."

Zellweger admitted it was "quite a leap of religion for everyone progressive successful this project."

The casting was "an contiguous anxiety, of course," manager Sharon Maguire said, "but I met her and loved her, and thought she had tons of qualities that Bridget has, an outer benignant of vulnerability and an interior irreverence."

Thank goodness helium was disposable and interested, due to the fact that some the publication and the screenplay were written with Pride and Prejudice star Colin Firth in caput arsenic Mark Darcy, the divorced lawyer who makes a nasty judgement astir Bridget astatine archetypal show but is prickly for a crushed (involving Daniel, conscionable arsenic Mr. Darcy has each crushed to distrust Mr. Wickham in the 1810 novel) and yet realizes helium was wholly incorrect astir her—and vice-versa.

"It appealed to me, the precise irony of that fact," Firth said of what turned retired to beryllium his dual crook arsenic Darcys from 2 eras, "that enactment I had done successful the past was being revisited upon maine successful this caller form."

"I did of people interest that Colin would triumph the movie due to the fact that his quality wins her, but I comforted myself with the fact that I thought my quality had much juicy lines. I counted them," Hugh Grant cheekily said astatine the time, referring to his relation arsenic the Wickham-esque Daniel Cleaver, Bridget's lusty rogue of a boss.

"When I talked to Hugh astir the character," Maguire recalled, "he said, hilariously, 'I conscionable don't admit this character, who is he?' And I said, 'Oh, travel on, you cognize this character.'"

Grant inactive wasn't afloat convinced, though, until helium recovered retired that Richard Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, was moving connected the script. Just arsenic helium suggested. "I kept saying, 'It's not working. Just get Richard Curtis to travel successful and assistance re-write it,"' helium told Cinema.com in 2001. "Eventually they did, and arsenic soon arsenic Richard came connected board, I signed connected the dotted line."

And having conscionable played a parade of sweet, awkwardly charming blokes who deserved to get the girl, Grant enjoyed being the cad for a change, calling the relation of Daniel "blessed relief. And a catharsis."

"I related to him," helium recalled connected The Jess Cagle Show in December. "He's a disappointed man. He's successful publishing and helium ever wanted to constitute his ain publication and hasn't. There was each that going on." Grant paused. "I deliberation I created an perfectly fascinating backstory to him, nary of which comes done successful the last performance."

In the publication Bridget starts disconnected weighing 129 pounds "(but post-Christmas)" and past chronicles 130 pounds arsenic a "terrifying descent into obesity." But alright, Zellweger had to summation value for the relation and her translation from birdlike to nearing mean size was rather the focus.

The 5-foot-5 histrion approached that facet of her relation arsenic systematically arsenic immoderate other, consulting an endocrinologist and a nutritionist to fig retired the healthiest mode to adhd to her 110-pound framework successful reasonably swift fashion. The regimen: 3 meals a day, snacks, and nary exercise.

"I'd person an omelet with food and condiment for meal with a fatty yogurt and past a effect crockery with a topping and foodstuff and java and pick and a bagel with food and a fewer hours aboriginal a cocoa shingle with weight-gain pulverization successful it,'' Zellweger told the New York Times in 2000. ''It was like, bash the research, larn your lines, devour the shake. It was each portion of the job."

Ultimately she gained a reported 17 pounds, which aligns with the 136 pounds that film-Bridget records successful her diary arsenic she vows to suffer 20.

Lost successful the fig fanfare was her accent, which she besides painstakingly worked on, knowing darn good that her casting was arguable truthful she'd amended nail it.

So Zellweger moved to England 3 months earlier filming began to enactment with dialect manager Barbara Berkery each time and bash v. British things. She adjacent sat successful arsenic an adjunct astatine Picador publishing successful London for 2 weeks, utilizing the sanction Bridget Cavendish, to signifier being some British and doing PR for a publishing house.

"It was precise technical,'' she told the New York Times. ''They wanted a precise circumstantial accent from a peculiar societal people successful a peculiar country extracurricular London. We started by overenunciating and speaking the Queen's English, past taking it backmost a notch. It got to beryllium a habit."

She would adjacent talk successful her British accent off-camera, "and I didn't cognize her arsenic a Texan until the wrapper party," Grant joked, "when she turned up with this weird voice."

Zellweger was dating Jim Carrey at the time, and erstwhile she'd speech to him connected the phone, she'd inactive beryllium utilizing her British accent.

"I'd telephone my fellow and helium couldn't instrumentality it,'' she told the New York Times. "He'd inquire maine to delight talk normally."

But Grant and Firth "were truly benignant astir it," she recalled of her method ways. "They knew I wasn't immoderate geek trying to dependable English. They knew it was portion of the job."

Zellweger drew the enactment astatine smoking existent cigarettes, alternatively puffing connected the herbal assortment arsenic Bridget frequently promises to chopped down. 

But the histrion did enactment connected her technique, having lone smoked erstwhile earlier successful her life, successful college, and it made her sick.

"I had my woman from North Carolina who likes to person a Marlboro present and again thatch maine however to clasp it," she explained to WENN. "She didn't archer maine the portion astir how, erstwhile you support it successful your rima for a portion it burns your eyes, truthful I was doing each these large scenes with Hugh and I was blinking away, trying truthful hard not to ruin his bully job."

Bridget's mother, Pamela, is played by Gemma Jones, who was the Dashwood sisters' mum successful 1995's Sense and Sensibility—which besides stars Grant arsenic Edward Ferrars, suitor of Elinor Dashwood, who's played by Emma Thompson—who later turns up arsenic Bridget's gynecologist Dr. Rawlings in Bridget Jones's Baby. 

There's besides rather a spot of Harry Potter franchise crossover, with Jones and Jim Broadbent, who plays Bridget's dada Colin, aboriginal reuniting arsenic Madame Pomfrey and Horace Slughorn, portion Thompson is successful respective of the films arsenic good arsenic Professor Trelawney. And Bridget's person Jude, who we archetypal spot crying astir her crap fellow portion she's successful the bath astatine enactment is Shirley Henderson, who played the bathroom-haunting Moaning Myrtle. 

In summation to having Firth and Mr. Darcy successful caput erstwhile Fielding dreamed up Mark Darcy, Bridget also gets to interview actor Colin Firth for enactment successful the 1999 caller Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason—an duty she, arsenic yet different giddy fan of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, is quite excited about.

But does that mean there's nary Colin Firth successful the Bridget Jones cinematic universe?!

Fielding acknowledged that surely the quality of Bridget contained aspects of the novelist herself, saying successful 2001, "I deliberation the truth is, determination has to beryllium a spot of you in a character, a large character, for you to beryllium capable to make her."

Grant had known Fielding for years, and remembered telling her a communicative that progressive him referring to idiosyncratic arsenic "a soiled bitch"—and past erstwhile helium read Bridget Jones's Diary, determination was Daniel playfully utilizing that phrase, which besides made it into the movie.

"And truthful there's adjacent a tiny spot of maine successful that part," helium shared.

But was determination a spot of Bridget successful Renée?

"Obviously I related to the pistillate aspect, her day-to-day regimen and combat against Mother Nature," a 31-year-old Zellweger told The Guardian in 2001. "On a much important level, I'm astir to participate the signifier of beingness that Bridget is experiencing and I, similar truthful galore people, understood her quest. I understood her hunt for self-acceptance and her regular effort to specify what is going to bring her happiness successful life, her conflict to differentiate betwixt what it is that she wants for her beingness and what it is that nine expects from her."

Asked if she felt real-life societal expectations were shifting, the histrion replied, "It's changing, and it's truly an absorbing clip close now. Bridget is of the past procreation that is trying to gaffe done that antiquated societal explanation of occurrence regarding women, successful presumption of being the cornerstone of a nurturing household unit; successful different words if you don't get joined and you're not celebrated successful that respect by a man, past you've failed successful immoderate way."

As for the disapproval that Bridget's concerns were much petty and old-fashioned than endearing and relatable, Zellweger said, "She faces those dilemmas with humor. She's alert that she's self-aware, which makes her not pathetic, and she's self-deprecating but successful a humorous mode that makes her not loathsome and not superficial. It's fantastic that Helen Fielding is truthful honorable astir our insecurities arsenic quality beings."

The communicative isn't just astir Bridget's quest to mates up, either, she pointed out. Rather, "it's the hunt for who you are, trying to specify yourself and truly fig retired what makes you blessed successful life. I don't think she's a setback for women. If you look done the people of the book, and the movie arsenic well, she truly comes into her own, connected her own. She decides to beryllium blessed present and not successful immoderate projected story of what the aboriginal mightiness clasp and the happiness that mightiness bring. She blossoms, and if that's not a affirmative feminist message, I don't cognize what is."

Stuntwoman Dani Biernat filled successful the gaps for Bridget's much harrowing moments, specified arsenic her descent down the firefighter's pole, though Zellweger amiably did each the close-ups. Front and back.

"That was connected the tallest fireman's rod successful London astatine a occurrence presumption adjacent Borough Market," Biernat shared with TimeOut London in 2017. "Renée did it connected wires—it was her backside that came down—but I did each the lining up and the wide shots without a wire."

Zellweger, a regular gymgoer with a tiny frame, did consciousness retired of sorts successful Bridget's body—not that determination was thing incorrect with Bridget's body, she insisted.

"It was truthful overmuch fun," she told the New York Daily News astir playing the character. "I felt unusual lone successful that I felt alien to myself sometimes. I've ne'er been that heavy." She added, "Weight is simply a precise idiosyncratic journey, it's unsocial to each woman's acquisition and her ain mode of defining her self-image and self-worth. It's a fantastic taxable successful this film. Through the mistakes you marque and the ones you look and successful Bridget's case, with a consciousness of wit you person self-discovery and self-acceptance."

Ironically, she's besides been criticized (or, you know, radical person expressed "concern") for being excessively bladed connected different occasions.

"I've been an jock since I was precise young," she told the paper. "So being progressive has ever been portion of my life. It's not been astir physicality successful presumption of quality but astir what you tin marque your assemblage do. It's been astir quickening my time, not astir buying a bikini."

Zellweger besides told The Guardian that she didn't see Bridget to beryllium astatine each "fat." "She has a antithetic assemblage benignant to me," the histrion explained, "but it reflects the antithetic lifestyles that we lead, and that's what she chooses. It makes her blessed to person Chardonnay and immoderate other Milk Tray [chocolates], truthful wherefore shouldn't she?" Nor would she telephone Bridget "normal," though.

"What's normal?" she wondered. "Kate Moss is normal—her familial make-up has dictated that this is however she'll look. For Bridget, who is voluptuous and doesn't spell to the gym connected a regular basis—that's decidedly normal. Not little attractive, not little beautiful, than idiosyncratic who weighs 20 pounds less."

Count Grant among the skeptics erstwhile Zellweger was archetypal formed arsenic the v. English Bridget. 

"It sounded similar a huffy plan, but it turned retired to beryllium brilliantly mad," helium said successful 2001.

"There was a full ungraded astir wherefore isn't this a British actress?" Grant recalled successful the 2020 documentary Being Bridget Jones. "I didn't cognize Renée Zellweger, and a Texan playing a British character, it did look similar a stretch. She was told to benignant of, well, she thought she amended loosen it up a bit."

Grant aboriginal cracked, "Then she came successful and it was Princess Margaret having had a stroke. But a week aboriginal it was a bang on."

He was re-trotting out that Margaret reference, having told Cinema.com 20 years ago, "After Renée came abroad, accent-wise she had a precise little Princess Margaret phase, which was alarming! She was soon done that, and past determination was a little signifier wherever Renée sounded precise flimsy arsenic though she...had a stroke! You know, everything was alternatively slurrrred. But past Renée knocked that connected the head. And 2 weeks earlier we started shooting, her accent came perfectly into focus. It's the champion American doing English that I've ever heard successful my life."

"We were a mates of girls connected this film," Grant recalled successful 2001 of himself and Firth. "Normally connected movie sets, classically, you hold for the actress to travel retired of the trailer, she's doing her constitution and wants to get her wardrobe absolutely perfect. But helium and I developed this benignant of rivalry astir who wanted to beryllium the thinnest and person the nicer clothes. So it was Renée sitting astir eating pizza and swilling beer, waiting for america to travel retired of our trailers portion we primped ourselves and finished our salads."

Firth said, referring complimentarily to Grant, that helium felt arsenic if helium was moving with a "connoisseur" of romanticist comedies connected this film. (And though they wouldn't stock a storyline, they'd some flex their rom-com muscles again successful the Curtis-directed Love Actually a mates years later.)

Stuntmen were utilized for erstwhile they went crashing done the window, but different the climactic rumble betwixt Mark and Daniel was unchoreographed. Firth told the Los Angeles Times successful 2016, "We're 2 precise ineffectual, frightened, aggravated yuppies going astatine each other—pulling hairsbreadth and wanting to tally distant astatine the aforesaid time."

Grant told Cinema.com, "I've been trying to bash thing similar that for years. You know, erstwhile the publication says 'they fight,' to prohibition the stunt coordinator from the set. Because they ever effort to marque it look truthful Hollywood. You know, we combat the mode 2 middle-class educated Englishmen would fight. Which I've ever maintained would beryllium benignant of girlie and cowardly, you know? With squealing!" 

But if they had to combat for real, "well evidently I'd win!" Grant promised. "You know, I was trained to kill! But Colin did marvelously, for idiosyncratic who's not very, well, sporty."

As it turned out, though, they were a smash deed and audiences demanded more.

"Hugh and I person lone ever worked unneurotic successful bid to fight," Firth deadpanned successful a Fandango Extras clip aft helium and Grant were compelled to tussle again successful the 2004 sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. "On the archetypal movie we had precise small together, but the fight. Here we are again, doing perfectly thing but fighting, again."

So, erstwhile they reunited for the long-awaited scene, they truly went for it. With the trash-talking, that is.

"He complained bitterly, of course," Firth said. "I was 'hurting him,' helium had bruises. I deliberation astir apt if we ever did bash it again I would counsel him to get successful a spot of grooming first."

Grant offered, "Colin present has to walk adjacent much clip successful the trailer, mediocre aged boy, 'cause he's, you know, he's losing it a little. I deliberation he'd beryllium the archetypal to archer you that. He's gone a spot jowly and the neck's gone a spot scrawny and each that."

Firth countered, "I deliberation helium was spending a spot of clip paying attraction to his assemblage and his fittingness astatine the time. It's singular the quality 3 years tin make, really, due to the fact that it was surely easier for maine due to the fact that helium was overmuch fleshier and his contours were softer. It was much similar wrestling my grandma from that point."

The long-awaited expansive buss successful the (fake) snowfall betwixt Mark and a pantsless Bridget was movie-specific, and Zellweger loved it. Firth, meanwhile, was successful awe of however stoic his starring woman was, "finding it rather chastening to enactment with a idiosyncratic similar Renée who ne'er complains ever."

"I retrieve that we changeable it connected a thoroughfare that we were not capable to fastener down, truthful the reddish double-decker buses with radical going by and I'm moving down the span successful my pants, my underpants," Zellweger recalled to Entertainment Weekly successful 2015.

Firth said, "It is simply a agelong clip agone but what I bash remember, I deliberation I had friends and household travel sojourn that time and sometimes if you sprout a country similar that, the portion tin beryllium tiny capable that radical hardly announcement you're making a movie. But due to the fact that it was nighttime and due to the fact that we snowed up truthful overmuch of London for it, it looked vast. I'd ne'er been connected a movie acceptable earlier which looked truthful dramatic, looked truthful overmuch similar a movie set. I mean from 5 blocks distant you could spot the entity lit up. And the snowfall machines! I deliberation they had improved snowfall effects since past but I bash retrieve everybody wearing protective masks but for 2 actors who evidently couldn't deterioration a mask. And I retrieve reasoning that's not good." (Fast-forward to 2021...)

To which Zellweger added, "Running successful the snowfall successful my underpants was [Maguire's] call. She thought it would beryllium very, precise comic and yeah, that is wherefore I emotion her."

When the movie had wrapped, Zellweger described Grant arsenic "hysterical. And he's bully and truthful intelligent, and his wit reflects that."

Grant evidently had a good clip connected set, describing his co-star to Elle successful 2009 erstwhile asked to sum up immoderate of his celebrated starring ladies utilizing 3 adjectives: "Delightful. Also acold from sane. Very bully kisser."

Called upon to reappraisal his comments to Elle seven years aboriginal on The Graham Norton Show, helium deemed his synopsis of Zellweger "fair." She's also "genuinely lovely," helium added, "but her emails are 48 pages along. Can't recognize a connection of them. I'll enactment them connected Twitter."

And contempt evidently saying everything helium could astatine immoderate fixed clip to enactment a halt to it, Grant revealed successful December that helium and Zellweger truly did support successful touch, quipping connected The Jess Cagle Show that she was "one of the fewer actresses I haven't fallen retired with."

"We get connected precise good together," helium added with a smile. "And we inactive speech agelong emails—hers, successful particular. They're astatine slightest 70 pages each. Interesting stuff, but rather hard to decipher. No, she's a decently bully egg—and a genius. Did you spot her Judy Garland? About arsenic bully arsenic acting gets."