‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’ Director Michael Morris On Telling An “Authentic ‘Bridget Jones’ Story” 24 Years Later, “Foundational” Balloon Scene And More

deadline.com:

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy director Michael Morris faced the challenge of aligning the titular character readers and viewers know and love with a major tragedy in her life followed by her resilience to keep living, not just surviving.

The fourth film introduces two new love interests — Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mr. Walliker and Leo Woodall’s Roxster — into Bridget’s orbit as she gets through the early period of grief following the death of her husband Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) in between Bridget Jones’ Baby (2016) and Mad About the Boy. “The loss of someone unlosable in your life is, sadly, just something that so many of us have to deal with,” Morris said. “Because of the nature of that, of where [Bridget] is, because the world feels maybe a little bit unstructured in some in some ways that make us anxious these days, I think it’s important for the movie, if it’s going to feel like real life, to touch on it.

It was really important to find a way to tell a very authentic Bridget story with all the fun and joy, but that allows space for us to feel other things as well.” Luckily, Bridget still has her trusted inner circle of friends from the first three films by her side, and they have all been through their own ups and downs.

The anchoring quartet have Bridget’s back no matter what, and especially when the romance ensues with first Woodall’s character and then Ejiofor’s. “The friends, all three of them, first of all, they’re all unbelievably brilliant actors.