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Louise Thomas
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Hugh Grant has revealed he was “crammed in” to the new Bridget Jones’ movie, despite there being “no obvious role” for him.
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, marks the fourth instalment of the franchise and will be released on Valentine’s Day next year. Based on the 2013 book of the same name, it follows Renée Zellweger as a newly single mother-of-two navigating the modern world of dating.
The movies, based on the books by The Independent columnist, Helen Fielding, achieved unprecedented success and an Oscar nomination for Zellweger, throughout the 2000s and 2010s.
The original cast members included Zellweger as Bridget, Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver, and Colin Firth as Mark Darcy.
Rumours had swirled that Grant and Firth could reprise their roles for the new film, with Grant confirming his involvement in an interview with Vanity Fair earlier this year.
Now, the actor has admitted that he was squeezed into the story, although his role initially made no sense.
“It is a good and moving script – it is extremely funny but very sad,” he said on The Graham Norton Show on Thursday (3 October).
“There was no obvious role for me, but I was crammed in.”
“So we didn’t have a 60-year-old Daniel Cleaver wandering around looking at young girls, I made up a good interim story for him.”
Grant didn’t appear in the 2004 sequel, The Edge of Reason, and told Vanity Fair last month, “I really couldn’t fit my character in—he just didn’t belong, so I stepped aside.”
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He had originally turned down a part in the fourth instalment of the movie too, saying “they’d done something I wasn’t crazy about.” However, once he was able to write “some scenes” in the film, he decided to come on board.
He added, “It’s absolutely the best (book) and I think it’s very funny and very, very moving. I’m not in a lot, I did a week’s work, that’s it ... But when you see the film, you’ll be very moved.”
Firth appears not to be making a return for the sequel, with his character written off in the books. However, it is unclear whether the movie will remain faithful to the source material.
