Bridget JonesAuthor Helen Fielding Will ‘Never Forgive Myself’ for ‘Killing’ Colin Firth inMad About the Boy(Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.Photo:Peacock

Peacock

Bridget Jonesauthor Helen Fielding is feeling guilty about killing off much-loved character Mark Darcy in the fourth installment of the franchise,Mad About the Boy.

“I didn’t mean to and he’s actually still alive,” the 66-year-old author quips at the event — held at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Wednesday, Feb. 13.

“It was just the character that was killed, and it wasn’t my fault really. It was just what happened in the story,” Fielding adds of Mark, who died four years ahead of the start of the new movie during a humanitarian trip to the Sudan.

Renee Zellweger and Helen Fielding.Dia Dipasupil/WireImage

Dia Dipasupil/WireImage

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Mad About the Boymarks the movie release of the fourth and final installment in the much-lovedBridget Jonesbook series. The first,Bridget Jones’ Diarywas published in 1996 and audiences first sawRenée Zellwegerplaying Bridget on the big screen ten years ago.

Fielding also shares with PEOPLE that she has Oscar-winner Zellweger, 55, andHugh Grant(who plays lovable rogue Daniel Cleaver) in her mind now when she writes the books.

“They’ve all got completely jumbled up together,” she says of the actors and their personas. “I’m really fond of all of them. And when I write Bridget now, I write for Renée."

“No one writes Hugh–Daniel’s lines better than Hugh,” she adds.

Meanwhile, Texan actress Zellweger alsospoke to PEOPLE ahead of the premiere on Feb. 12, sharing that this iteration of Bridget Jones felt different and more emotional to the others.

Colin Firth appears in Bridget’s mind in ‘Mad About the Boy’.Jay Maidment/Universal Pictures

Jay Maidment/Universal Pictures

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“We were familiar with how emotional the material was because the novel had been out for a while,” said Zellweger, of knowing Darcy had died.

“But the script was so beautifully written that the emotion just sneaks up on you. You think you’re heading in one direction that feels familiar, and then yeah, it just gets you," she added. At the premiere,Zellweger also told PEOPLE that she shed “real tears"during filming.

And Zellweger isn’t the only cast member tearing up atMad About the Boy.During a Nov. 13 appearance onSiriusXM’sThe Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham, Grant, 64, saidhe cried when he first read the screenplay.

“It’s got a huge amount of heart,” he said.

source: people.com