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Bridget Jones/Helen Fielding interview

Tamzin Sylvester, ITV London Tonight - November 10, 2004

It's Bridget Jones week on London Tonight to mark the opening of the latest movie The Edge of Reason. While star Renee Zelwegger wowed fans at the London premiere the woman who really brought Bridget's obsessive alcohol and cigarette counting & the expression Singleton to life is author Helen Fielding.

Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones author): Just drove past a poster saying 'Bridget's back' and I thought wow, because it started off so privately - they asked me to write a column as myself but thought it would be too embarrassing so made someone up/made up this exaggerated character and everyone thinks shes me anyway.  (Asked if it is her) Well I don't know, could be (laughs).

(Bridget) Not particular to London girls/ has been published in 30 or 40 countries; even in Japan people seem to identify with it...

Helen Fielding: She has got this very good air of vulnerability and also she's got the ability to look great sometimes and ordinary at other times - most women know what thats like and the difference in the way the world treats you when you got out looking terrible and when you go out looking all done up - thats quite a big thing in women's lives - might make you a bit cynical that the world is such a different place to someone who is looking pretty and someone who is looking a mess.

There will be a Bridget Jones 3?

Helen Fielding: Don't want it to end up like Rambo - me pushing a zimmer frame around writing Bridget Jones 12.  I'll see, I'm not writing anything at the moment because I've got a baby so I'm just enjoying being with him I did think the other day when I found myself eating his food that I could see a way of having Bridget come back with baby.