Bridget Jones & Me: What Happened Next?
Nathalie Whittle | Woman & Home UK – October 2016
It's been 12 years
since Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - the sequel to
2001's Bridget Jones's Diary - hit cinemas, and as our
lives have changed, so have those of the women who have brought the hit
films to life. Now, as Bridget Jones's Baby hits cinemas on 12
September, Sally Phillips, who plays comedic favourite Shazza, tells us
how her life has changed since the films first exploded onto our
screens...Sally Phillips, 46, lives with her husband, Andrew Bermejo, and their
three sons, Oliver, 11, Luke, eight, and Tom, four, in London. She has
played Bridget's straight-talking best friend, "Shazza" in all
three of the Bridget Jones films.
I used to go round saying, "Will everyone stop behaving like I'm
Shazza because I'm really different." If I'm honest with myself now,
that wasn't - and isn't - strictly true!
I'm not as outspoken as her but like Shazza in the first two films, I
spent most of my twenties and early thirties single. All my friends were
getting married and having kids and I struggled a lot with self-pity. I
found the idea of not being "chosen" by someone difficult.
Naively, I had this idea that I was going to end up with someone arty, so
I dated guitarists and painters - needless to say, those relationships
never worked out!
Fortunately, things changed in my thirties when I began to think,
"This is ridiculous, I'm going to have to change strategy here."
So when Andrew, who works in shipping sales, asked me out, I decided to
give it a shot. And I'm glad I did because we were married a year later!
It's funny to think I spent all those years desperately looking for love -
but actually in the end, it found me.
I've spent a lot of time over the past 12 years imagining what might have
happened to Shaz - would she have found a lovely man by now too?
So I breathed a sigh of relief when I read the script for Bridget
Jones's Baby. When we meet her again, she's in a long-term
relationship with a folk singer and has two children, similar ages to my
own. Her partner is unsuccessful and they don't have much cash, but they
love each other so much and she's reached this stage where she's just
trying to be a good mum. It was impossible not to see the parallels
between her life and my own... yet again!
Shazza is still the real cheerleader in Bridget's life - we all need
those, don't we?
When I was at
university, there was a group of us who called ourselves "the
family" because we were such great friends - they're still my best
friends now. Like Bridget and her friends, we've been through so many ups
and downs together, from my friend Jess telling us she was gay, to me
telling her years later that I'd become a Christian. Now we know each
other so well that we can have a whole conversation without any words at
all.
When my son Olly was born with Down's syndrome, I admit I thought it was a
huge tragedy.
That's the line that was fed to me by the midwives and doctors anyway. I'm
not going to pretend it's been easy, but there's an awful lot of joy that
has come from it, which isn't in the story you're often told. Olly loves
to study and read now and he's about to start at a mainstream secondary
school. No, my life isn't what I once imagined it would be, but I'm much
prouder than I ever dreamt I could be.
One of the best things about filming Bridget Jones's Baby was realising
Renée [Zellweger] and I have a genuine friendship.
We got on so well during those first two films but in my head I kept
thinking, she's a movie star over in the States and I'm now a special
needs mum. It felt as though our lives had gone in such different
directions. Then when we met again, we instantly fell back into these deep
conversations and I thought, "Oh wow, that was actually real" -
and I know that friendship is forever now, which feels wonderful.
Andrew and I have been married for 15 years now and every day there are
highs and lows - isn't every relationship like that?
Much like Bridget Jones, who finds herself toying between two men, Mark
Darcy [Colin Firth] and Jack Qwant [Patrick Dempsey] in thenew film, I
always used to think you could get everything you want from one person,
but I've realised that you can't - and there's nothing wrong with that.
We're still learning what makes each other happy every day.
If I could describe my life now in one word? Chaotic!
There's actually one scene in the new film where I haven't slept because
Andrew was working away and the kids kept me up all night. I had to get
into a car and say all these lines at just the right time while putting my
seatbelt across me without knocking the flower off the coat I was wearing.
I kept getting tongue-tied and Sharon [Maguire, the director] kept saying,
"The seatbelt's on the flower, you have to go again!" I kept
saying to her, "I'm rubbish, I'm so bad" - but she was
incredibly supportive. I'm a bit nervous to see how it actually turned
out!
One of my favourite scenes is the christening for Jude's [another of
Bridget's best friends played by Shirley Henderson] first baby.
All these actors and actresses who had played the "background"
friends and family in the last two films all went off and got mighty
famous and won BAFTA s, but they came back and we had Jessica Hynes, Dolly
Wells, Julian Ryan Turner and Darren Boyd just being extras improvising
their socks off in this wonderful scene - it's going to be hilarious to
watch. We spent three days filming it at this gorgeous stately home and
when we weren't needed, we'd all lie on the beds upstairs helping each
other write comedy sketches, telling stories and playing mindless games.
It was brilliant.
The funniest moment on the set was when Colin [Firth] had a tantrum over
pizza.
He's one of the most polite and composed men I know, but we were doing a
night shoot and about three hours after we ordered some takeaway pizza,
they arrived hard and cold. Colin just kept saying, "It's not on,
it's just not on!" - he was as angry as he gets, but it was
hilarious. Actually, he's not going to thank me for telling you that!
|