'Diary' author talks about Zellweger's delightfully imperfect character

'Diary' author talks about Zellweger's
delightfully imperfect character

By Emilia Hwang, University Wire - April 17, 2001

LOS ANGELES -- After a few glasses of Chardonnay and a dozen cigarettes, Bridget Jones is finally ready to face her job in the fast-paced world of publishing, while balancing a rigorous routine of counting calories and trying to snare a decent boyfriend.

Helen Fielding's candid chronicle of a young Brit struggling to survive single life in London has grabbed the attention of readers across the world.

"Bridget Jones's Diary," based on Fielding's international best-selling book, ventures to bring the title character's painfully hilarious and absurdly neurotic adventures to movie audiences.

"It's great that they've enjoyed the book," Fielding said at a Los Angeles press junket. "I think they're going to enjoy this film. Like me, they know that the film is another creative incarnation of the book."

The movie is directed by Sharon Maguire, Fielding's friend and inspiration for the feminist character Shazza (Sally Phillips).

Despite all the chatter surrounding the casting of an American as the beloved British heroine, actor Renée Zellweger embraced the challenge of bringing Bridget Jones to life. In addition to trading in her Texan accent for a variant of the Queen's proper English, the usually health-conscious actor put on an extra 20 pounds to play the role.

"I wanted for her to physically reflect the lifestyle that she leads, so it was more about a lifestyle change than anything," Zellweger said. "I wanted her to look like what she looked like in my head after I read (the book)."

Aside from having a restless charm and a good-natured spirit, Jones is a disaster in the kitchen and a catastrophe when it comes to men. Though often awkward and irrational, the thirty-something singleton is also an independent working woman, a loving daughter and a caring friend.

"We need to see more human qualities celebrated in the media," Fielding said. "She's not perfect. She doesn't always look fabulous. She doesn't do everything right. She's just in an ordinary job, struggling along, but you like her because she's a human being. She just wants what everyone else wants."

Fielding also said that audiences will appreciate a contemporary heroine that's not stick thin, a refreshing change from media images of female perfection.

"You see an anorexic model on the television who appears to go from the gym to running a major company to home to a perfect husband and children, and cooking dinner for 12 people effortlessly," Fielding said. "It's just a figment of some advertisers' imagination, but we all think we're supposed to be that. I think it's sad."

Before the movie, and even before the book, "Bridget Jones's Diary" began as a column by Fielding in London's Independent newspaper. Since it was too exposing and embarrassing to write about herself, the journalist created a comically exaggerated figure.

"I was looking through my old university diaries and I found that there was a tragic lack of social engagements, but a lot of lists of food and calories - so it would be carrot: 15 calories, yogurt: 150 calories, box of Milk Tray chocolates: 4,782 calories," Fielding said. "I was 18, I was really thin, but I was dieting like mad, and there's something about women always trying to alter themselves, never good enough as they are."

Fielding thinks that women will identify with Bridget's struggles as she grapples between how she thinks she's expected to be and how she is. In addition to her obsessive dieting, Bridget desperately attempts to avoid spinsterhood. She bounces between a love-hate relationship with the rich and intellectual attorney Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and a passionate one with her arrogant and brash boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). After an illicit love affair with Cleaver based almost exclusively on sex, Bridget is abandoned for a more slender and sophisticated colleague.

Though Bridget's plans don't always work out, Grant said that the movie expresses a refreshing outlook on life with the message that it's OK to fall short of success.

"I live in that world - that was one of the reasons why I love the book in the first place," the British actor said. "Half my friends are like that. We live in a world of Chardonnay and cigarettes and hopelessness."

When Bridget Jones is not fussing about her clothes or fretting about her weight, she finds constant solace in self-help books, wine and chocolate.

In the end, however, the modern day coquette is finally granted her happily-ever-after in a suitor who genuinely professes that he loves her just the way she is.

"If there is a moral to the film - that's it," Grant said.