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Renée Zellweger Says She's Open to Reprising Her Role as Bridget Jones

After a few years out of the spotlight, Renée Zellweger is back in our lives in a big way. The actor was just nominated for her fourth Academy Award, for her critically-acclaimed performance as Judy Garland in Judy. (She won for Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for Cold Mountain.)

The actor has played so many memorable roles over the course of her career but none is perhaps as beloved as Bridget Jones. Based on the best-selling novel by Helen Fielding, Zellweger made her onscreen debut as the titular character in Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001, followed by Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason in 2004 and Bridget Jones’s Baby in 2016. And in a new interview with Vanity Fair, she said she’s open to revisiting the lovably messy character once again.

When asked if there would be another installment of the hit franchise, she said…maybe: “It would be fun, yeah. I know people are coy. I’m not. I promise I’m not. I just don’t know.”

“I mean, that’s a Helen [Fielding, the author] question, but I hope she would want to,” Zellweger continued. “I know she wrote a book , so maybe. I’m always the last to know. They’re already building sets, and they call me and say, “What do you think?” It’s fun. It’s so much fun. Man, I’d love the experience of revisiting her. I love her. I just think she’s so much fun. She’s the best. Sure, if I got invited to do that, that sounds like fun.”

Well, that sounds incredibly promising, doesn’t it? When last we left our dear Bridget on the big screen, she was a new forty-something mom and finally married to Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). Though the plot of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (which was written before Bridget Jones’s Baby) offers up plenty of fodder for a possible new film.

And considering nostalgia-inducing reboots, revivals, and sequel are all the rage in Hollywood, we wouldn’t be surprised (but very thrilled) if this became a reality in 2020.

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Judy Review: There Will Only Ever Be One Judy Garland—But Renée Zellweger Gets Close

My grandmother is a highly accomplished pianist—though if she heard someone put it that way, she might object, humble to the heart. Born in middle America during the Great Depression, she began playing after my great grandparents noticed her plunking out pretend concerts on a windowsill, as though it were a keyboard. Lessons cost a nickel, she told me once. They were worth it. Before she was even a teenager, my grandmother earned money playing at local venues with her father in a family band.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been mesmerized by her ability to pluck any melody from the air and translate it through her fingertips. And when I started piano as a child, she would often watch over my practicing. Sometimes, she would play and I would sing. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was one of our favorite duets. Back then, I thought it was beautiful—still do. But while I have long known every lyric, it took years for me to recognize the sorrow beneath the song.

The Wizard of Oz, for which the tune was written, premiered in 1939 and was adapted from Frank L. Baum’s novel of nearly the same name, published at the turn of the century. Judy Garland was a tender 16 when she appeared in the film, a touchpoint of her career. Born Frances Ethel Gumm to vaudevillian parents, she began performing onstage as a child and signed a contract with MGM at 13.

But though Judy Garland would grow into a screen icon over the next decade, headlining beloved hits like Meet Me in St. Louis and Babes in Toyland, stardom came at the cost of her childhood. She was failed by the people who should have been her protectors and advocates. The consequence was an adult life riddled with addiction, financial troubles, failed relationships, and abuse.

David Hindley / Courtesy of LD Entertainment and Roadside Attractions

These elements of Garland’s story have been explored in biographies before and with brutal specificity in Peter Quilter’s play End of the Rainbow, set during a stint of performances Garland did in London months before she died, at 47, from an accidental overdose. That same era is the backdrop for Judy, which stars Renée Zellweger as the titular lead and is now in theaters.

Directed by Rupert Goold, the movie pivots between Garland’s teen years and troubled adulthood: lascivious threats and cruelty from Louis B. Mayer, the MGM head at the time she was filming The Wizard of Oz; extreme dietary restrictions courtesy of the studio; pills to stay awake, pills to go to sleep. According to the film, Garland takes a gig—a nightly act for sold-out crowds at a posh club called Talk of the Town—to pay off debts and make money so she can provide a more stable home for her two younger children.

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