When Sharon Met Bridget  

Sophie Goddard | Red Magazine – September 6, 2016  

5 years after directing Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sharon Maguire is back for the third instalment. And a lot has changed, she reveals to Sophie Goddard, in both their lives.

It’s 15 years since hapless singleton Bridget Jones first appeared on our screens, and the world is a different place. Single women are now a growing force to be reckoned with; their votes determining elections and reshaping the political landscape.

They’re certainly not crying into their Chardonnay while waiting for a man to save the day. So Sharon Maguire, who directed the first film and has been welcomed back for the third, has a challenge on her hands. When the script first dropped into her inbox, she was intrigued to see how the characters’ lives had panned out. “But I was haunted too,” she admits, “I realised... it was going to take me back through to how my own life had changed – how all our lives had changed. I was keen to see if any of Bridget’s life fantasies had come true. And it occurred to me: that’s what the film’s about – all those fantasies we have for our lives, and how they turn out.” Maguire (a long-time friend of Helen Fielding) is already an integral part of Bridget’s life – the character’s on-screen friend Shazza was based on the director. “Yes, that was strange. In the first film, we cast Sally [Phillips, who plays Shazza] and I remember thinking, ‘I like Sally playing this character if it’s supposed to be me.’ And it is, but, boringly, it’s an amalgamation of other people, too.”

While many of the original cast are back, a lot has changed in 15 years. In Bridget Jones’s Baby, our heroine is 43, single and... pregnant.

To complicate things further, she’s not sure whether the father is old flame Mark Darcy (Firth) or charming newcomer Jack Qwant (Patrick Dempsey). Not even the cast knows the father’s identity – it’s such a closely guarded secret that they have reportedly filmed three endings.

That plot thread aside, it’s not hard to see parallels between Maguire and Jones’s lives. “When I made the first film, I was that character myself, thinking, ‘I’m in my late thirties, and although I’ve been in relationships, they haven’t ended with marriage or babies...’ My generation was floundering, thinking, ‘If life doesn’t take you down that path, what do you do?’”

Now Maguire has children, does she still share similarities with Bridget? “God, yes. She’s a mix of misguided self-belief and self-loathing. I share those.”

Since the new film touches on motherhood, Maguire also admits she was able to give Zellweger the benefit of all her experiences. “[Motherhood] is hard, and to have come through that, knowing they’re still alive and that I’m doing okay, has given me confidence in other things.”

Nevertheless, returning to such a huge franchise must be daunting. “Everybody has an opinion on what’s ‘Bridget-y’,” she admits. “But 15 years on, I have more confidence in my own instincts...”

Was it tricky to stay true to Bridget while updating her for a 2016 audience? “The first film – saying that women from 30 onwards who weren’t getting married and having babies were worried about being lonely – that was a valid worry. And whatever feminism has now provided us with, there’s still a sense of loneliness. So I think there’s still something zeitgeist-y about what she’s saying, because Bridget’s fantasies still haven’t quite come true. She ends up getting pregnant, but it’s not conventional. It’s not tied up with a bow, it never is. It’s all about compromises.”