Renée Zellweger
- Actor and executive producer
Press clippings Page 4
Well, what else would you watch on Valentine's Day night? Whether you're a singleton or smug married, grab that tub of ice cream and snuggle down with this loveably rewatchable Brit comedy.
Bridget Jones, for anyone who's just arrived in Britain, is a mildly weight-obsessed, thirtysomething single woman with big mummy pants looking for love through a glass of Chardonnay.
She is portrayed, surprisingly well, by the normally size-zero US actress Renée Zellweger, who womanned up for the role by stuffing her face with pizza, Guinness, milk shakes and doughnuts. Talk about sacrifice for her art.
Anyway, the joy of this is watching Bridget's various, entirely relatable, mishaps and her mistakes with men, the lead contenders for her heart being Hugh Grant (dashing cad) and Colin Firth (uptight, haughty, dull).
The scene where they get it on - as in Hugh and Colin, as in having a big girlie fist fight - is a hands-down classic. YouTube it if you need a giggle.
Carol Carter and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Metro, 14th February 2014Renée Zellweger returns as the thirtysomething with more frothy romantic shenanigans in an inferior sequel to the first film. Bridget, having spent "eight blissful weeks" in a relationship with dashing Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), is single again. But thankfully her ex, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) is at hand to provide distraction.
The Telegraph, 23rd December 2009Keeping up with the Jones
What is it then that makes this female version of Mr Bean or Norman Wisdom so apparently appealing? It's partly because the audience knows that beneath the plump Bridget there is the svelte Renée Zellweger, an authentic Hollywood star putting on both weight and an English accent for our benefit.
Phillip French, The Observer, 14th November 2004