Helen Fielding on Stereotypes of Dating Younger Men

The night the third “Bridget Jones” novel, “Mad About the Boy,” came out in October 2013, author Helen Fielding was taking a walk in London when she passed her local pub and was accosted by a tipsy patron. “You’ve killed Colin Firth!” they shouted dramatically.

“Well the truth is, I didn’t ever intend to actually kill Colin,” Fielding tells Variety over Zoom, remembering the details of that day with a mischievous smile. She had instead ended the fictional life of Mark Darcy, the character Firth played alongside titular heroine Renée Zellweger in the “Bridget Jones” film adaptations, of which there were two at the time. Human rights lawyer Darcy was killed by a landmine in Sudan while negotiating the release of aid workers — an honorable way to go.

As a result, “Mad About the Boy” — the long-gestating film version of which debuts on Peacock in the U.S. Thursday and in U.K. cinemas Friday — explores Bridget’s struggles reentering the dating world as a widow with two small children. But as was once again made evident when the “Mad About the Boy” trailer dropped in November, Fielding had clearly underestimated her readers’ emotional attachment to Darcy, or, erm, Colin.

“When the book came out, it was the second lead after Syria on BBC News: ‘Mark Darcy is dead!’” Fielding recalls. “I’d had to previously call Colin up and ask if he had someone with him and if he was sitting down, and I told him that I’d killed him. And of course, he said, ‘You’ve killed the wrong one.’”

Fielding doesn’t fault “Bridget Jones” fans for treating the actors and the characters they portray as interchangeable — in fact, she does it all the time. “God, I get all their names mixed up,” she says at one point during our interview. “I don’t know if I’m talking about Bridget or Renée.” The same can be said of Colin Firth/Mark Darcy and Hugh Grant/Daniel Cleaver, who both return — albeit Firth as an apparition — for the fourth, and supposedly final, “Bridget Jones” film. They’re joined by newcomers and dual love interests Leo Woodall (playing a much younger man Bridget falls for) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (as a stern but kind-hearted teacher), who prove to Bridget that love is worth finding once again.

“Bridget Jones” is inherently personal to Fielding, who started the franchise as a column for The Independent in the ’90s. She created the Bridget character to hide her identity, but is forthcoming that a lot of the stories are based on her own life and those of her friends. “That was the irony about me not writing the original column as myself, because I wanted to be private,” she says. “So then I completely exaggerated the character, and then it was just me anyway.”

As with the other “Bridget Jones” films, Fielding co-wrote (with Dan Mazer and Abi Morgan) and executive produced “Mad About the Boy.” But its subject matter hits especially close to home with the death of Fielding’s former partner, TV writer Kevin Curran — with whom she has two children — in 2016. Therefore, Fielding made it her mission to ensure those complex emotions found their way into the script, in addition to a healthy dose of humor.

“Handing over your work as a writer and as a screenwriter to a collaboration, it’s famously quite painful. But I think with this one, because it’s such a personal story with the children and a real loss as well, it’s much more tender,” she says. “To see Bridget keeping her joie de vivre and optimism and kindness in the midst of something really actually quite hard to deal with, which is bringing up little children when they’ve lost their father, is a very delicate thing.”

Below, Fielding tells Variety more about adapting “Mad About the Boy” for screen, casting Woodall and Ejiofor, getting Grant back on board, breaking the taboo of women dating younger men and if it’s truly the last “Bridget Jones” chapter.

It’s been over a decade since the “Mad About the Boy” book came out in 2013. How did the film adaptation come to be? 

This novel didn’t start as a “Bridget” novel, it just sort of turned into one. But when I was writing it, I was seeing a kind of three-act structure and how it would shoot. I’ve been working a long time on getting it to happen, and then in the pandemic I spent time writing lots of versions of the screenplay and talking to lots of friends. So at the end of that, it was quite well developed. And you know, it’s quite emotional to have the original cast still there. I was talking a lot to Renée about the character and showed Hugh it very early on.

I feel very touched that there is a fourth episode of this. It’s a franchise, but there are no superheroes or things blowing up or wizards. There’s just the perspective of these characters and the tone and the humor. And this is a much more complex story to write than before. And then of course, when it comes to production, this isn’t my first time making a film and you know that you have to hand over your baby. It is a collaboration. And it’s sort of like raising a teenager, you have to let everyone do their job and then step in when you have something important to say to keep it on track.

As you mentioned, this “Bridget Jones” installment is a little more serious than the others and confronts aging as well as the grief Bridget has after Darcy’s death. What was the message you wanted to get across?

I was wanting to explore the world I see around me, which is how life is for women as they age, and what I see is they don’t change that much. They’re still vibrant, they’re still dating and having sex and doing things wrong and laughing and finding joy and keeping the same friends. And then the thing about grief, and I do of course know about this personally because I had the same story with little children, is that it is sort of a mixture. It’s like going through muddy puddles. You go dark, and then you come out, and then you go in and you come out. And I thought the film and the book were an opportunity to show that humor is actually a very intelligent and nurturing way of processing grief. So to see Bridget still keeping her chaos — setting the spaghetti on fire, walking into a shop buying condoms and seeing the schoolteacher behind her — in the midst of genuine pain and emotion with the children is quite tricky to do, but also a good thing to share.

Bridget has a couple of new love interests in “Mad About the Boy,” one of them being the much younger Roxster (played by Woodall). In the movie, he meets her stuck up a tree instead of on Twitter, as it’s written in the book. What was behind that change?

I think to actually see the moment when Roxster first sees Bridget conveys a lot about why he loves her. Certainly in the book, it was very much a reciprocal relationship and it was a meeting of kindred spirits. There’s a sort of innocence and playfulness to both of them and a joie de vivre as well as pure desire. There’s no transaction. And so I think for Roxster to see Bridget stuck up a tree, you could see why he would think that was something quite unusual. I did have a lot more dialogue for Roxster — lots of funny dialogue between the two of them and complexity that I had to let go of in the movie.

What drew you to Leo?

I first spotted him in “The White Lotus.” Even though he was playing a terrible rogue, I thought, “That’s a very intelligent actor.” And he likes women, you can see he likes women. He’s got the twinkle. And then in “One Day,” he was completely extraordinary with this huge range. The character of Roxster that I wrote does have all this playfulness and he’s very humble, as Leo himself is. There’s a child-likeness to Bridget and to Roxster, and that’s why they work together.

Women dating younger men has become somewhat of a trend in cinema this year with “Babygirl,” “The Idea of You” and more. Why is it important to show this kind of relationship?

Hugely important. Fiction is always slow to catch up with reality. The reality I see around me is that there are a lot of relationships between older women and younger men which are reciprocal. And in a way, in all these movies, the age difference is discussed and an issue, but they both genuinely see something in the other which they like and admire and want and there is genuine desire on both sides. I mean, the movies you mentioned are all very different, but what I like is they are all showing this reciprocity, which isn’t always true in movies with the older man and the woman 30 years younger.

Bridget’s other beau is Mr. Wallaker, her kids’ stern but lovable teacher. What made Chiwetel Ejiofor stand out for the role?

Chiwetel has a wonderful mixture of warmth and gravitas. It’s a bit like Jane Austen’s Darcy and Elizabeth, the buttoned-up man who needs a woman to unlock him and two characters sort of redefining their world view and coming together through that. Wallaker in the book was a former SAS [U.K. Army’s Special Air Service] and a bit of a mystery and they had to teach each other lessons, which they still do in this version. And that is part of the romantic structure — as with Darcy and Elizabeth, they spark from the beginning.

Hugh Grant is back as Daniel Cleaver, after skipping “Bridget Jones’ Baby” because he reportedly disliked the script. (The 2016 film was based on Fielding’s columns, not a “Bridget Jones” novel.) How did you get him on board this time?

I showed Hugh the script really, really early on — I think before it even was handed over — and he liked it. He’s so funny and so loyal to my writing, so it’s just an absolute joy to work out new lines and jokes with him. I would give him most of the credit. But he is a very intelligent man and a good writer, and the same is true of Renée. So I don’t need to be possessive of the writing with those characters because they know what they’re doing, you know?

What was a line that Hugh improvised?

He says good night to Bridget after he’s been babysitting and then he says, “I can’t remember how this works, do I give you 20 quid and try and shag you?” It’s not very #MeToo, but it is very funny.

But also, I think he was quite emotional with this. I was talking to him about how Daniel would actually feel after years of rivalry with Colin/Darcy, that he would be quite emotional about these children and would have a lot of feelings around that because he knew Colin/Darcy from university. And I think he does that really well, while at the same time being the same Daniel. But his shell does crack. The idea that he does think, “Who’s in my life?” — it was interesting. He’s a really good actor.

When you reflect on the past 24 years of “Bridget Jones” movies, what are you most proud of in bringing the franchise to the screen?

What I’m most proud of is that this character that I began writing on the assumption that no one would ever read her — it was an anonymous column, and if I’d known so many people were going to read it I would never have dared write it — is still relevant enough to people to make it into a movie.

I’m also really proud that there’s a big audience with Gen Z. Like my daughter’s friends are relating to her because the world has gotten harder for them with social media and they’re still worrying about their bodies, but they’re also feeling guilty because of body positivity for worrying about it. And so the fact that they all come to me in my house and want to ask my advice and say they like Bridget and that she comforts them, that makes me really proud. For any writer to have a character who transcends the time in which she was written, that’s something to be really grateful for and I really am. I hope also that this film does something to make us rethink the stereotyping of older women because there’s so much bad stereotyping on screen and in fiction. Bridget isn’t anyone’s old bat.

Going back to the beginning, there was some initial backlash to Renée as Bridget because she’s American. Looking back, why do you feel Renée has been so perfect for this part? Do you think it could have been any other way?

I think she’s perfect. [Bridget was] the one character I could never cast because I never saw her until Renée. I just saw through the lens of Bridget, who of course is not me, nothing to do with me. But once she had got the accent together — Hugh was very funny about the initial accent — she became, for me, Bridget. She’s developed a whole persona. The mannerisms, the walk, the voice, the turn of phrase. And that’s intermingled with what I write for Bridget now.

As a person, she’s wonderful to be around, she’s wonderful to work with and she’s a consummate professional. She is in every single scene, pretty much — that’s an incredible piece of hard work to shoot and to be on it with continuity. Never lost it, never stopped being lovely, knew everyone’s name. And then she’s just really down to earth, which Bridget is. She’s not pretentious at all. Bridget just doesn’t like pretentiousness, she likes the things that matter, and I think Renée does too and that’s probably why she’s embodied this character so well.

“Mad About the Boy” is being released theatrically in the U.K., but going on Peacock in the U.S. What do you think of that decision?

You know what, I’m a realist. I’ve been sort of parenting this brand for a long time now and I understand the changing economics of the movie industry and the different markets. So I completely respect what Universal decided to do. They know what they’re doing. People watch “Bridget” — all three movies are still streaming — so they will watch this one at home. It’s a good movie to watch on the sofa, I think.

Is this truly the final chapter of “Bridget Jones”? Would you write another book or do another movie?

I’m always saying, “Right, that’s the last one. I’ve had enough.” So I do like to be dramatic. But this book started as not a “Bridget” book, so I never really know what’s going to happen. There is possibly a musical at some stage. At the moment, I’m writing a very non-“Bridget” book, which hopefully will stay and not turn into another “Bridget” book. But I don’t know.

The only thing I do know is there’s nothing cynical about this movie. This is not a reboot to make money. This is a story that just grew, like stories do with novelists. So I would only ever do it if it’s that, not just because. It’s got to mean something.

This interview has been edited and condensed.