After vowing not to return to rom-coms, Grant reprises his role as Daniel Cleaver in ‘Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy’
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From Left: Hugh Grant; the actor and Renee Zellweger in ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’
Hugh Grant has high praise for the newest Bridget Jones film!
The actor, 64, will star alongside Renée Zellweger in the fourth movie in the franchise, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, which is set for theatrical release in February 2025.
“It’s the one with the most heart,” Grant told Extra, adding, “It’s very moving, but also very funny.” Compared to the first three films, Grant said that the upcoming film’s script is “the best” thus far.
“It’s partly based on [author] Helen Fielding’s experiences of bringing up two children by herself after her husband died. And so Bridget is bringing up two kids and wondering whether she should ever go back to dating,” Grant told PEOPLE in April. “It’s a very good script.”
Based on the Fielding’s novels, the Bridget Jones film series begins with 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, in which the titular character (Zellweger, 55) spends a year juggling relationships with barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and her boss Daniel Cleaver (Grant), told through the lens of her diary.
The second installment, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, followed in 2004 and sees Bridget grapple with her choice of romance and conflicts surrounding that relationship. Another sequel, Bridget Jones’s Baby, was released 12 years later in 2016 and tackles Bridget’s sudden prospect of life as a single mother and who the father might be.
“I find her so endearing…her self-deprecating sort of determination,” Zellweger said on Sirius XM’s The Jess Cagle Show in 2022. “I love her. And I think it’s really rare to get to follow a character through different stages in her life.”
Before Grant is seen reuniting with Zellweger, he’ll return to the screen as the “diabolical” Mr. Reed in the upcoming Heretic, which debuts in theaters on Friday, Nov. 8.
A stark contrast from the rom-com world of the Bridget Jones movies, Heretic is described by A24 as a religious horror movie about two young missionaries who become trapped in Mr. Reed’s home, who then “must turn to their faith if they want to make it out alive.”
While speaking to Extra, Grant shared a slight spoiler for the new Bridget Jones movie, quipping that it’s a project “in which I kill no one.”
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy will debut in theaters in the U.S. on Valentine’s Day 2025.
