Renée Zellweger may be reprising the role that made her famous but she says that Bridget Jones is always with her and that she has conversations every day with people about their "Bridget Jones moments."
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is due out this Thursday and it's the fourth movie in the much-loved franchise - and it also finds our heroine in a much different place from the last time she saw her.
She is now a widow after her husband Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) was killed on a humanitarian mission in Sudan four years earlier and she is still processing her grief while juggling life as a single mother of two children and venturing back into the workplace.
She is also flirting with the dating game in a much changed world of Tinder, apps, ghosting, and swiping left.
Two-time Oscar winner Zellweger is back in the role for the first time since 2016 and Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy is also her first movie since Judy Garland biopic Judy in 2019.
They’re calling it her comeback but in truth the character has never really left her.
Asked what Bridget fans relate to, she said, "Her humanity. She is an inspirational character and she is ever hopeful and I think we recognise ourselves in her imperfection – despite her executing things not always to plan and she makes us feel ok to be imperfect."
The new movie is a warm and fuzzy romcom but it is also tinged with sadness and has some well observed lessons in love and life from writer Helen Fielding and director Michael Morris.
It also stars One Day actor Leo Woodall (28) as park ranger and aspiring garbologist Roxster, who becomes Bridget’s toy boy after he rescues her and her errant kids from a tree.
He also nearly steals the whole film in a standout scene involving a swimming pool and a dog in distress.
"I did that dive in one take probably because we didn’t have time to re-do it," Woodall says. "I didn’t think I could do the dive but I has a good trainer. The dog was lovely - it was terrified and shivering and wet and made me look like a hero.
"It was a boiling hot day in August, I was the only one who could jump in the swimming pool. It was a great day for me - not so much the dog . . . "
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy also sees 12 Years and a Slave and Children of Men actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (47) play Mr Wallaker, a slightly uptight and logical science teacher whose analytical outlook on life is in very sharp contrast to Bridget’s organised chaos.
Speaking about how much romance, the dating game and sexual mores have changed since Bridget made her debut way back in 1995, Ejiofor says, "It was a long time ago. A quarter of a century, you’d hope things have changed, evolved and moved on but then there are certain things that are always true.
"I feel that people like Wallaker are sensitive and attentive and he’s an educator so he understands how to see people and communicate with them. He is a person of interest to Bridget and I think that is something that has always been true of people who are empathetic."
The good news is that after his conspicuous absence from the last Bridget Jones movie, Hugh Grant makes his blessed return as loveable rogue Daniel Cleaver and he really is a force of nature.
"He’s a treasure, absolute treasure," says Zellweger. "He is just wonderful."
Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy is in cinemas this Thursday.
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