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. I mean, James Callis [as Tom], Shirley Henderson [as Jude], Sally Phillips [as Shazzer], that’s an unbelievable little Greek chorus you’ve got there, and it’s so warm,” Morris said. “At this point, like at the end of the film, they say, “We’ve had some fun, haven’t we?” We’ve known this group for 24 years, like they’re our friends as well. So it’s really important to allow them to be in this film and function the way that they do, as her chosen family. They’re the closest to her. It was really fun to find them again and rediscover them a bit. Tom’s long hair. They’re all the same, but a bit different.”
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In the below interview, Morris unpacks striking the balance with grief and the joy and humor of the Bridget Jones franchise as well as specific scenes from the poster-like balloon letter shot to nods to the previous movies.
DEADLINE: What tone did you want to set with this fourth Bridget Jones installment? The grief is poignant in this film among the other classic emotions.
MICHAEL MORRIS: It’s a really good question because there is clearly a different type of journey that you’re going on watching this film. And I think that’s natural. The beauty of this franchise is that we’ve known [Bridget Jones] for 24 years now, and so we’ve seen her at all these different touchpoint places in her life: starting out in the world, who’s she going to be, then living the life, working in the job and doing the thing, and then having a baby and all of these moments.
As life operates on us, it can bring more joy in the form of children and family and deeper friendships and all of that. And it can most likely bring the other thing too. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a partner, could be a parent, could be a friend, it could be a dog or a cat. Anyone that gives you pleasure and joy, you risk, losing that thing.
DEADLINE: I’m curious what conversations with Helen Fielding were like, I know she wrote the screenplay. It’s based on her book, in this fourth installment, after the first three.
MORRIS: The basics of this story, everything I’ve just said, has always been super important to Helen, because there’s a lot of personal story in this. She channeled a lot of that personal story into the book, Mad About The Boy. Every novel is full of incident in ways that you can’t possibly have everything in the film. What we both wanted to latch on to very early on was the essence of what I’ve just said about that loss. It was really important to Helen, and it was very important to Renee too, and to Hugh. Those conversations before we even began were critical, because before we ever even set foot in a rehearsal room or a stage, “Are we all on the same page? Can we make this film?” Or are we going to be tossing and turning between, “Is it funny enough? Is it sad enough?” I wanted it to be everything. We all want[ed] to move to a new kind of register.
Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mr. Walliker in ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’
Jay Maidment/Universal Pictures
DEADLINE: That piano scene at the end, was that improvised? Mr. Walliker comes out of his shell. that was Chiwetel playing right?
MORRIS: It wasn’t improvised. It was very important to me going in that that was what we were going to see. You think he’s playing quite formally, a fun but formal song, and then he mixes it up and gets the party going. And that’s him now, in the world of Bridget. He’s softened. He’s wearing a jumper. He’s more down to earth in his own way, but Chiwetel is such a master kind of craftsman. He didn’t want anyone pre-recording it. He was just like, “I’m gonna learn it. I’m gonna do it.” It was him playing in the concert. It was him playing at the end.
DEADLINE: Another scene that will stick with me forever is the balloons when they’re letting them go with the letters. That felt so cinematic. Was that in the book? Can you talk to me about staging that and filming it?
MORRIS: In the book, yes, Helen always had this idea — and it may have come from her life, actually, you’d have to ask her — about releasing balloons. As a director, when you first start developing a script and working on on the beats and everything, certain things become foundational. They become like visual icons in your own mind. And for me, that shot dropping back where it’s almost all sky, and they’re small, little creatures in the corner, and you just see those balloons. I can imagine that being a poster. To me, that was always an image for this film.
L-R: Mila Jankovic as Mabel Darcy, Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones, Casper Knopf as Billy Darcy in ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’
Alex Bailey/Universal Pictures
And to do it, by the way, was an unbelievable feat of both visual and special effects, meaning that we shot it on Hampstead Heath, found a spot for the camera way, way down at the bottom of the hill, so we could get this clean line on the horizon. And then our amazing special effects team had two giant cranes and invisible wires, and we actually, in real life, brought these balloons up. Unfortunately, those are not the balloons that you see in the film because it was very regular, but it allowed us to frame and compose the shot exactly as you see. It was really cool.
DEADLINE: Could you explain Isla Fisher’s cameo and the “never meet your heroes” aspect?
MORRIS: It’s totally a cameo in the sense that, I, on a total whim, was like, “I wonder if Isla would say yes?” Because it was just this little glimpse of — I really wanted someone impossibly glamorous and gorgeous and great, living across the street, dressing beautifully, yelling at her kids in a way that feels totally glamorous to Bridget who doesn’t do that, you know, and just like flouncing into the distance fabulously. I asked Isla, I don’t know what came over me, but I guess it’s the power that you get used to with Bridget Jones, where people love the franchise, and she unexpectedly said, “Yeah, that sounds fun.” So she showed up for a day if she did it. If I could have had more Isla, I would have had more Isla, but in this film, she’s just a little glimpse of local color.
DEADLINE: When the friend group of four from the very first film — Shazzer (Sally Phillips, Jude (Shirly Henderson) and Tom (James Callis) — get drinks early on, were those blue drinks a nod to the blue soup from Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001)?
MORRIS: Yes. In fact, our brilliant props team actually color Pantone-matched the blue from the blue soup, so they’re perfectly the same color.
DEADLINE: Were there any other big callbacks you wanted to make to the previous films?
MORRIS: There are so many that it’s almost more fun, just to leave it at that. I’m sure you saw the penguin pajamas. The famous Christmas jumper makes an appearance. But more than that, there’s just lots there’s lots of lines from other films, there’s little key props from other films. There’s camera angles that will remind you of important shots from the first film. That’s our gift to the people they’ve grown up with or really enjoyed the franchise. It’s worth seeing again because you’ll see more the second time.