As Bridget Jones, she is the perennial singleton who has never given up on the idea of romance.
But with Renée Zellweger gearing up to play her most famous character for a fourth time, friends are hoping that she, at least, has found her happy ever after.
And just like Bridget, she’s fallen for a Brit.
Filming for the fourth and perhaps final instalment of the Bridget Jones chronicles is due to start in May.
It will be based partly on Helen Fielding’s book Mad About The Boy, in which a widowed Bridget is forced to confront single life once more when, four years after the death of Mark Darcy, she plunges headlong into the world of internet dating while juggling motherhood.
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It is thought that the film will similarly see Bridget looking for romance once again – although it is not yet known whether Colin Firth or Hugh Grant will be making appearances.
Like her screen character, Renée, 54, is famous for her rollercoaster love life, which has included an engagement to Jim Carrey, a four-month marriage to singer Kenny Chesney, a two-year relationship with Bradley Cooper and seven years with musician Doyle Bramhall II.
But when she arrives in London to reprise her role as Bridget, it will be with her Plymouth-born boyfriend of three years, Ant Anstead, a TV presenter and motor specialist who is 10 years her junior.
And friends say they believe this romance might be for keeps.
“Since Renée entered her 50s, she’s become a different woman,” says one source.
“She has a confidence and a stability that she lacked before and she’s ready and open to the love that Ant has to give.
"He also comes with a ready-made family, which can sometimes be challenging, but is also a huge blessing and something that Renée always wanted.”
The actress credits their 2021 meeting to her publicist Nanci Ryder, who had motor neurone disease and died in June 2020, aged 67.
Renée was grieving when she was told about Ant’s show Celebrity IOU: Joyride.
It features a famous person thanking someone in their life by having their car refurbished.
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She wanted to express her gratitude to two brothers who had looked after Nanci, and appeared on the show to explain how fantastic they were.
She certainly wasn’t expecting to fall in love in the process.
Renée said in one interview that she and Ant joked that he was a gift to her from Nanci, adding: “It made me smile to think on this, the serendipity of it all.”
Ant will be going back and forth to America for work while Renée is shooting, but film executives have been told to find a home that has space not only for the couple, but also for Ant’s three children from his two previous marriages – Amelie, 20, and Archie, 17, from his 12-year marriage to Louise Anstead, and four-year-old son Hudson with fellow presenter Christina Hall.
Ant’s transition from Hertfordshire police constable to Californian TV personality is worthy of a movie storyline itself.
In 2005, the former copper – who was awarded two commendations for acts of bravery – was stabbed while apprehending a violentoffender, and the brush with death caused him to re-evaluate his life.
He left the police force and began to pursue his passion for restoring cars.
As Ant’s reputation for being a master mechanic and car designer grew, he attracted the attention of TV networks.
After initially turning down an offer to appear on British television, Ant co-hosted Channel 4’s For The Love Of Cars in 2013.
In 2017 came the call that took him to California.
He was invited to join the popular Wheeler Dealers show, co-hosted by his London-based car dealer friend Mike, and it has become the most-distributed show on Discovery.
His marriage to Louise didn’t survive the transatlantic life, and his second marriage to Christina lasted two years before they filed for divorce in September 2020.
A custody battle followed, and the pair now divide time with son Hudson equally – while Renée has stepped into the role of doting stepmother.
What I love most about Bridget is her vulnerability and her openness
Renée Zellweger
She was photographed with Ant’s two older kids a year ago in the UK when they attended the Goodwood Festival of Speed Gala.
Plus, the children are also regular visitors to the Californian beach home Renée and Ant share.
She also helps Ant bring up Hudson – who he calls a “glowing ball of joy” – and is regularly seen pushing him on swings, giving him snacks and chasing him on a scooter in parks near their home in Laguna Beach.
Renée – whom Ant affectionately calls “Ren” – has spoken in the past about being broody, particularly after playing a pregnant Bridget in 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby.
But while she never had her own child, she gets to have all the joy, the love and occasional pain of being a parent to a boisterous youngster in this blended family that her new romance has brought into her life.
Renée’s return to the Bridget Jones franchise, a few years after winning her second Oscar in 2020 for her portrayal of Judy Garland in Judy, has surprised some.
But in reality, this is something Renée has longed for.
When asked about it on American chat show The Talk three years ago, she joked that she was looking forward to Bridget Jones: The Menopause, adding: “Helen’s written the book and I love this character.
I love that she makes it OK to be imperfect. That makes me root and cheer for her every time
Renée Zellweger
"So, if they call me, I’ll go running.”
Ahead of her last outing as Bridget in 2016, she said of the character who spawned a million copycats: “What I love most about Bridget is her vulnerability and her openness.
"I love that she makes it OK to be imperfect. That makes me root and cheer for her every time.
"Like all of us, she has evolved. She is more inclined to listen to her own intuition and she has matured a little bit.”
The return to a franchise that has grossed nearly £1billion at the box office also comes at a time of flux for Renée in her career.
She’s been a huge star since the age of 24, with minor roles in Dazed And Confused and Reality Bites leading to her first massive lead in 1996’s Jerry Maguire, and has since starred in hit after hit, including 2003’s Cold Mountain, for which she won her first Oscar.
Following the huge global success of Bridget Jones’s Diary and its follow up The Edge Of Reason, she took the brave decision to take a career hiatus – one that ended up lasting much longer than she expected.
Speaking of being one of the most famous women on the planet, she said last year: “I don’t know if it was because it was a heightened experience of me being a woman of that age, or because back then cinema was so culturally important – the centre, in a way, of everyone’s consciousness – but it felt pretty chaotic.”
She went back to school – she already has a degree in English literature from the University of Texas – studying public policy and international law, and had lots of therapy.
It was telling that one of her first comeback jobs was Bridget Jones’s Baby in 2016 – losing herself in a character she knows so well is her happy place.
In 2019, Renée founded The Big Picture Co with her writer and producer friend Carmella Casinelli, but according to one film source, it has not been as successful as she had hoped.
The company’s project The Thing About Pam, in which she donned a fat suit to play a murderer, was critically panned and she was lambasted for not giving the role to someone who didn’t need prosthetics.
It is not yet known what she will do to play the rather curvier Bridget – she famously put on weight for the role in the first two films, but simply donned a prosthetic stomach for her third, saying that the rollercoaster of going up and down in weight had been too difficult.
Two other projects announced by The Big Picture Co and starring Renée have not yet come to fruition – with both the pandemic and the strikes in Hollywood no doubt having an impact.
So Bridget Jones returns just at the right time.
Of course, the world has moved on in several ways.
There is a debate to be had about whether a character so needy, weight-obsessed and prone to drinking away her problems should be celebrated.
“I grew up in the Bridget Jones era and the books and films – with the pressure to lose weight, the smoking and drinking chardonnay by the bucketload – all had an impact on me,” says empowerment expert Laura Jeffery, 42.
“It is actually a really disempowering narrative. It is quite self-indulgent and she’s someone who has no internal trust.
“The obsession with weight was particularly unhealthy – no woman should need to be validated by losing weight.
I think as a society we need to celebrate diversity more.
We don’t need to fit into a mould of a certain look or be hopeless as we pine over potential romantic partners.”
But fellow female-orientated coach and writer Harriet Minter, 42, insists there is still a place for Bridget Jones, more than 20 years after she first hit our screens.
Harriet says: “I know people are quick to write her off as this outdated example of early Noughties female hysteria, but really she was a pioneer.
I think we fell in love with Bridget Jones because she is somebody that doesn’t have it all together and isn’t pretending to
Harriet Minter
"With this character, Helen Fielding had a woman writing about her own experiences, her insecurities, her fears, doubts and her concerns – she broke down the facade of us having to be perfect and unconcerned at all times.
"She was a voice of authenticity before any of us really understood what it meant to be authentic.
“I think we fell in love with Bridget Jones because she is somebody that doesn’t have it all together and isn’t pretending to.
"That is relevant more than ever in this social media age where we perfect our lives by editing the highlights reel.
"We all need a good dose of old-fashioned reality with the sense of humour that comes with her. We need to learn to laugh at ourselves again,” says Harriet.
The huge success of One Day shows that perhaps we are all ready to return to a less complicated time – one when romantic comedies were all the rage.
It definitely feels time to welcome Bridget – and a happy Renée – back to the UK.
Can you be a feminist and still love Bridget Jones?
Two writers argue their case when it comes to Bridget’s girl-power credentials…
NO says writer Julie Burchill
“These days, you get pornographers who call themselves feminists – sometimes, modern feminism seems not so much a broad church as a hall of distorting mirrors.
But Bridget Jones may well be a needy, greedy, stalking, squawking, Häagen-Dazs-mainlining step too far.
Was there ever a wetter representation of modern womanhood?
It’s been 23 years since the first film and eight years since the third one, and the new movie will deal with the 50-something heroine’s life as a single mother negotiating the modern dating minefield of apps and sexting.
I can imagine it now – she’s going to send the wrong emojis to men and get d**k pics back – and be mortified.
"She’ll try Zumba to get back into shape – only to wet herself.
The doctor will tell her she’s peri-menopausal and she’ll confuse it for peri-peri chicken
Julie Burchill
There will be a trans friend who is wiser than Buddha and hotter than Beyoncé.
The doctor will tell her she’s peri-menopausal and she’ll confuse it for peri-peri chicken and ask if she can order two portions.
A handsome US military man will profess undying love to her on Facebook and Bridget will have herself waxed as smooth as an oven-ready turkey to bag her beau – but it’s a scammer after her cash.
It hasn’t even started yet, I know, but please make it stop.
Bridget Jones was created in 1996 – can Helen Fielding really flog the sad singleton shtick for this long?
Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, for instance, has made Bridget’s ‘racy’ antics look about as outrageous as a corn plaster.
Both are the kind of women who think of themselves as feisty and sassy free spirits – who are far too vibrant to bother with the boring bits of life, such as paying bills on time.
The difference is that Fleabag was beautifully written and performed, whereas the Bridget Jones films make panto look like Pinter.
Can you be a feminist and still like Bridget Jones? You can, but you’d have to be a very stupid one.”
YES says columnist Kate Wills
“Bridget Jones is the ultimate feminist.
She proved it was OK to care about your calorie intake and the situation in Chechnya, to make mistakes and still come up smiling, to be happy on your own and still want the happy ever after.
So many works of feminist pop culture owe a massive debt to the role.
Without her unapologetically messy and chaotic inner life there would be no Girls or Fleabag.
Her female friendships are some of the most realistic you’ll come across.
Who doesn’t wish they had best mates like Shazza to discuss f**kwittery with over a bottle of wine and a packet of fags?
When the book came out in 1996, I was only 11, but I remember everyone and their granny reading it.
Then the film was released when I was 16 and I felt so seen.
Some of her antics may not pass the woke test, but Bridget Jones is still laugh-out-loud, wee-your-big-knickers funny
Kate Wills
I may not have been a single 30-something, but Bridget Jones taps into the gap we all feel between how we are and how we think we’re supposed to be.
Every woman in the world can relate to some aspect of Bridget – that’s why the book was an international bestseller and the films have made millions at the box office.
Things may have moved on since Bridget first jumped on the scales – in the post #MeToo era, no one’s boss is sending emails saying: ‘I like your tits in that top’ – but the stuff women talk about hasn’t changed.
We may dress it up as body-confidence these days, but we’re still obsessed with how we look.
We overthink relationships and fall in love with men who trample on our hearts. In many ways, Bridget was ahead of her time.
Her quest for self-improvement and ‘goddess’ status feels very in keeping with today’s wellness industry.
Some of her antics may not pass the woke test, but Bridget Jones is still laugh-out-loud, wee-your-big-knickers funny.
And as Helen Fielding put it: ‘If women aren’t allowed to laugh at themselves, they haven’t got very far on the equality front.’”