When Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant hit the pink carpet for the Parisian premiere of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, it was just like old times.
Zellwegger, 55, and Grant, 64, stepped out in The City of Light on Monday, January 27, dressed very similarly to what they wore when the first Bridget Jones movie premiered almost 24 years ago.
Zellwegger wowed in a black lace, one-shoulder column gown with a long sleeve, a more glamorous echo of her 2001 ensemble: A black, form-fitting cocktail dress with sheer panels, accessorized with black pointed heels and berry lipstick.
Grant, for his part, seemed to have recycled the same dapper outfit — black jacket, pants and patent shoes, with a relaxed white button-down — that he donned as a younger man.
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The actors happily posed for photos together alongside costars Leo Woodall and Chiwetel Ejiofor as well as their director, Michael Morris, and screenwriter Helen Fielding, whose 1996 novel Bridget Jones’s Diary was adapted into the hit film that spawned an entire cinematic franchise built around Zellweger’s beloved heroine.
Earlier this month, the Oscar-winning actress finally revealed how she spent her six-year hiatus from acting.
“I was sick of the sound of my own voice,” she said in a discussion with Grant, published by British Vogue. “When I was working, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, listen to you. Are you sad again, Renée? Oh, is this your mad voice?’ It was a regurgitation of the same emotional experiences.”
Zellweger decided to take some time off in 2010 and did not appear in another film until 2016.
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“I wrote music and studied international law,” she explained to Grant. “I built a house, rescued a pair of older doggies, created a partnership that led to a production company, advocated for and fundraised with a sick friend, and spent a lot of time with family and godchildren and driving across the country with the dogs. I got healthy.”
Recently, Grant, who plays the devilishly charming Daniel Cleaver in the Bridget Jones movies, has also opened up about career struggles, revealing that he’d lost his confidence after listening too closely to those who criticized his talent.
“I entirely lost faith that I could do anything else. I believed my critics really,” the actor told the “Smartless” podcast in November. “But I see now maybe I was wrong.”
Grant said he was “proud” of his work in rom-coms including Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral.
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“It’s nice to have made movies that actually entertain people and they’re much harder than people think,” he said. “And in some cases, much better than the sneerers think.”
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is set for a February 13, 2025 release on Peacock.
