Trivia / Bridget Jones

• Actor Leaves, Character Dies: Hugh Grant was initially set to return for Bridget Jones' Baby, but eventually he declined, due to not liking the script and not seeing how Daniel Cleaver could fill into the story without changing him dramatically, something he didn't want. So, the film opens with his funeral.
• Career Resurrection: Renée Zellweger had been out of the public eye for several years when the third film was released. Due to a couple of other release delays with projects she had filmed before that, it ensured she would have a very active 2016 and 2017.
• The Cast Show Off: Bridget's tuneless karaoke. In the DVD commentary, the director says "ladies and gentlemen, that really is Renee singing like that!".
• Contractual Purity: Sally Phillips, a born-again Christian, got lots of criticism from her church for playing a character who loves to say "fuck" all the time. She had a rather brilliant response:
  "My position on that is that if you were only allowed to play perfect characters you would only be allowed to play Jesus and someone would have a problem with that too, I expect, him being a man and all."
• Creator Backlash: While most of the cast and writers seem to agree in retrospect that The Edge of Reason was an underwhelming sequel, Hugh Grant really didn't like how it turned out, to the point of naming it one of the lowest points of his entire career and refusing to entertain any notion of appearing in the third film.
• Creator Killer: Beeban Kidron, who directed the second film and had directed many cult comedies beforehand, hasn't had another theatrically released film in the years since, with her subsequent work being almost entirely in documentaries.
• The Danza: Gemma Jones shares the same last name as her character Pam.
• Dawson Casting: Rebecca in the second film, one of the points about her is that she's a decade younger than Bridget at 22, but she is portrayed by Jacinda Barrett and is separated from Renée Zellweger by a 3 year age difference.
• Deleted Role: Crispin Bonham Carter, who had played Mr Bingley in the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice filmed a couple of scenes as a character called Greg - but they were cut from the film. He can be glimpsed when Bridget quits her job and at the launch party.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Renee Zellweger gained thirty pounds for the role. And then lost it again to do Chicago. And then put it back on again to do The Edge of Reason. She didn't gain the weight for the third film, and there's a line from Bridget that she's now happily at her ideal weight.
• Fake Brit:
  • There was a certain amount of outcry when it was announced that Bridget, the "quintessential" modern Englishwoman (with an Irish first name and a Welsh second name), would be played by Texan Renee Zellweger. Then the film came out and some people started to think she was secretly from Britain. (She also received an Oscar nom for the film.)
  • Mark's colleague Natasha is played by the South African-born American Embeth Davidtz.
• International Coproduction: The films were American-British-French coproductions between Universal (US), Miramax (US), Working Title (UK), and StudioCanal (France). The third film adds Asian companies Perfect World Pictures (China), Toho (Japan), and Fuji Television (Japan).
• No Export for You: There are several deleted scenes from both films that aren't included in the American DVD releases, some scenes were uploaded on YouTube but were then taken down from the site. All that remains for American viewers are the stills from the films.
• The Other Darrin: Charmian May plays Mrs Darcy in the first film, but passed away before the sequel, where she is played by Shirley Dixon.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Gemma Jones played a meek mother in Sense and Sensibility. Here, she's the egomaniacal expy of Mrs. Bennett.
  • Hugh Grant as a less-dashing, more lechery love interest, not to mention the Wrong Guy First. According to Fielding, this is much closer to his actual personality anyway.
• Promoted Fanboy: Jacinda Barrett (Rebecca Gillies, Mark's assistant and Bridget's secret admirer) said in a featurette for the second film that when she viewed the first film, she wanted to have a beer with them along with looking up to Renee Zellweger.
• The Red Stapler: Inverted. People have claimed that chardonay sales have declined since Bridget Jones's popularity. One representative said "Before Bridget Jones, chardonnay was seen as really sexy. Afterwards people were like 'God, not in my bar!'" It seems to have come back in favor even with the release of the 3rd book.
  • There was a favor for Elsa Peretti open heart necklaces in real life, especially after the 1st movie came out (Bridget would wear a silver one throughout the series).
• Saved from Development Hell: The third film was originally set to be produced in 2012 but it didn't get made until a few years later.
• Sequel Gap: The third film was released 12 years after the second film.
• Throw It In!:
  • Helen Fielding was a friend of Salman Rushdie and decided to call him up to ask "would you like to make a fool of yourself?", and so he was given a cameo in the film.
  • Renée Zellweger asked to not have to gain weight for the role again like she did in the past, so Bridget was written in as reaching her goal weight.
• Troubled Production: The second film's production wasn't massively troubled per se, but was hampered my many disagreements between director Beeban Kidron and the actors, to the point where executive producer Richard Curtis reportedly had to step in several times to smooth things out, and essentially took over from Kidron in the editing room. It also suffered from a botched released strategy in the U.S., where it was initially released on a limited number of screens and greatly expanded the following week, only for poor word-of-mouth and reviews to cause it to quickly sink without trace.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The actresses being considered to portray Bridget? Christina Applegate, Patricia Arquette, Rosanna Arquette, Drew Barrymore, Juliette Binoche, Saffron Burrows, Helena Bonham Carter, Sandra Bullock, Cameron Diaz, Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Kate Hudson, Elizabeth Hurley, Milla Jovovich, Ashley Judd, Nicole Kidman, Alex Kingston, Lucy Lawless, Jennifer Lopez, Sophie Marceau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Denise Richards, Miranda Richardson, Tilda Swinton, Charlize Theron, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emma Thompson, Uma Thurman, Liv Tyler, Emily Watson, Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, Kate Winslet and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
  • Early scripts of the third film apparently had Bridget in a love triangle between Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver for a third time, but none of the actors liked the idea, and Hugh Grant declined to be in it. As the final film was being made, the writers asked Grant to at least be in the film for a cameo, but he declined again.
• Write What You Know: Fielding herself based Bridget and her diary entries, not only on Pride and Prejudice, but also the habits and diaries of her friends and herself. For the 3rd book, she like Bridget has grade-school children whilst in her early fifties.
• Write Who You Know:
  • Shazza is based on Fielding's friend Sharon Maguire, who directed the first and third films. She did not play herself.
  • There are several other characters based on people associated with Fielding, Scott Wallacker is based on her son's teacher.

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