Renee Zellweger reveals she went unrecognised during unexpected Bridget Jones work experience
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Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant have come together to share some Bridget Jones secrets and discuss their 25-year friendship. Renee, the lead of Bridget Jones, has been interviewed by her co-star and friend in anticipation of the upcoming release of the latest film in the popular franchise - Mad About The Boy.
During their playful chat, Renee surprises Hugh by revealing how she went unnoticed during some covert work experience for the first Bridget Jones film. As Hugh recalls, there was a lot of 'hullabaloo' when American Renee was cast as Helen Fielding's British heroine.
Renee, who confesses that unlike Hugh she doesn't google herself, only became aware of the uproar when she began preparing for the film. To get into character as a publicity assistant at a London publishing company, Renee secretly worked at Picador, a major UK publishing house, for 'a month or two'.
“I was ‘Bridget Cavendish’ because Jonathan Cavendish, the film's producer, was very good friends with the gentleman who was the editor of Picador,” she told Hugh for Vogue magazine. She soon found it difficult to avoid the publicity surrounding her casting: “Part of my job was to take the newspaper clippings from the daily papers and file them under Helen Fielding's file, as they represented her,” she disclosed. “And I started having to clip these articles about this ‘c**p American actor’ who was set to play Bridget Jones.”.
A chuckling Hugh then said: “You were clipping your own clippings!” Before the conversation took a deeper turn, Hugh said: “Was it in any way natural at Picador or did they just think, ‘There's the famous American Renée Zellweger poncing around our office?’”.
