Colin Firth ‘felt like a ghost’ on set of new Bridget Jones film

It’s no small feat for a director to helm a Bridget Jones sequel – and certainly not when it’s the fourth film, 24 years since the franchise’s onscreen debut and nine years after the beloved heroine’s last outing. But Michael Morris and the movie’s writing team of Bridget’s creator, author Helen Fielding, Dan Mazer and Abi Morgan, are up for the challenge of shifting the popular heroine from the recognisable surroundings of 30-something singledom to those of a 51-year-old mother-of-two – and widow.

When I meet Morris at Claridge’s for the film junket, we’re actually left alone in a cavernous hotel room to get stuck into discussing all things Bridget, comparing past with present. The 51-year-old filmmaker, who previously directed Andrea Riseborough to a best actress Oscar nomination in American drama To Leslie, is only on his second film with Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. By his own admission, this wasn’t the movie (or genre) he saw himself doing next until a chance meeting with Fielding at a mutual friend’s house, where she revealed the film was in development and the progression of Bridget’s story ‘immediately sparked my interest’.

Morris’s background is in theatre – he was artistic director at The Old Vic for three years from 1999 – as well as TV, where he has directed and executive produced the likes of Better Call Saul, House of Cards, Billions and 13 Reasons Why. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. Bridget Jones is maybe not the expected next project for him, but his affection for the character and dedication to getting it right shine through during our conversation.

He recognises the previous films as ‘fun, funny, frothy, kind of romantic [and] at times iconic’, with the original as ‘a cultural plank of this country’. ‘It’s dated in some ways, but it’s completely part of our lives.’. Adapted from Fielding’s 2013 novel Mad About the Boy, Morris knew that ‘how we tell her story has to change’, given the devastation of Bridget’s new situation.

‘And there’s no one better to do that with than Renée Zellweger, who at a moment’s notice can be the funniest physical comedian that I’ve worked with, but then can get absolutely real emotionally as well,’ he adds. The headline of the movie is Bridget without Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy. The pair were finally seen settling down together at the end of 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby, and in the interim had children Billy and Mabel. Mark is killed offscreen ahead of the events of Mad About the Boy, which takes place four years later and sees Bridget’s family and friends encouraging her back out onto the dating scene.

In the trailer, fans have already seen glimpses of Bridget remembering Mark in new scenes, so it’s no spoiler to say that Firth does appear in a few heartbreaking scenes in the new film, which Morris has previously described as ‘a comedy of grief’. Morris was especially struck by ‘brilliant’ Firth’s first day on set and a comment he made that reflected on the legacy and life of the Bridget Jones films for its creatives.

‘The first day he worked with us was the scene at the beginning when they’re doing bedtimes for the kids. And this is not [in] a house that’s ever been seen, it was all created and designed for the film. But it was supposed to be the house that they had lived in together just before he died – so it’s filled with photos,’ Morris explains – something usually mocked up cleverly with Photoshop for movies.

‘And [Firth] said, “All these pictures that are on set, they’re real because we’ve been doing this for 25 years.” So as he walked through this house, which is surrounded with all this evidence of their lives, he said it was honesty like being a ghost. Not that he’s playing a ghost, he’s much more playing a memory – but he said it was a bit like that because you walk through this space where you’re kind of not part of it, but you are.’.

Morris also remembers some ‘really emotional moments’ on set with the two of them together – ‘because it’s them’. Morris doesn’t take it lightly that Mark is no more, seeing him as half of one of the most iconic couples in British pop culture being taken away. It’s a particular challenge for Bridget when she ‘is just all joy and love and positivity and falling over and standing up again, and that’s what the journey was here,’ he says of the Bridget we see in Mad About the Boy.

Another undeniable component of that celebrated relationship is, of course, third wheel Hugh Grant’s lothario Daniel Cleaver. Back from the dead and up to his old tricks, he’s still chasing a stream of women (now far too young) – but this problematic tendency for a man now in his 60s is nicely addressed in the film, without giving Cleaver any kind of personality makeover for 2025. For Morris this approach is because he’s ‘a contemporary filmmaker, meaning I’m not making a 2001 film’.