British screen icon Bridget Jones returns in new film

LONDON: Hollywood star Renee Zellweger on Wednesday will mark the return of Bridget Jones – the Chardonnay-swigging, calorie-counting hapless 1990s singleton – at the world premiere of the franchise’s upcoming film ‘Mad About the Boy’.

Taking place in London, scene of all Bridget’s greatest catastrophes, the red carpet showing is also due to be attended by rising star Leo Woodall, 28, who plays her latest and much younger love interest.

Texan actor Zellweger famously piled on a few pounds and successfully cultivated a British accent to star as Bridget alongside Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in the original 2001 smash hit ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’.

In the latest instalment, Bridget – now a 51-year-old widow and single parent – navigates new levels of embarrassment as she grapples with texts, tweets, dating apps and Botox after the death of her husband, Mark Darcy.

The fourth and latest instalment comes nearly a decade after the previous one – ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’.

In that movie, Bridget ended up pregnant and unsure who the father was after flings with a handsome American internet billionaire, played by Patrick Dempsey, and ex Mark Darcy, played by Firth, whom she eventually marries.

‘Very sad’

Bridget Jones creator Helen Fielding previously said she wrote Mark Darcy, Daniel’s one-time love rival for Bridget’s affections, out of the series because she did not want Bridget to become smug and married.

Yet in ‘Mad About the Boy’ Hugh Grant reprises his role as Daniel Cleaver, Bridget’s former boss and boyfriend, while Emma Thompson also returns as her gynaecologist.

Grant has described the film as “extremely funny, but very sad”.

The ‘Love Actually’ star, 64, told the BBC last year there had been “no obvious role” for him in the film.

But producers had “crammed” him in and Grant had managed to “make up a good interim story for him” nonetheless.

The London premiere is also expected to be attended by Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays another of Jones’s love interests, and director Michael Morris.

Jones began life in a newspaper column by Fielding in 1995 before she turned it into a series of bestselling books.

‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’ is due to be released via US streaming service Peacock on February 13 and a day later in cinemas internationally.