Renée Zellweger Opened Up About Working Undercover In A London Office Ahead Of “Bridget Jones,” Where She “Became Aware” Of The Backlash To Her Controversial Casting

In case you didn’t know, the fourth installment of the beloved Bridget Jones movie franchise, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, is due for release next month — and fans couldn’t be more excited.

Universal Pictures / Working Title Films / Via youtube.com For reference, Bridget Jones’s Diary came out in 2001, which is when the world fell in love with Renée Zellweger’s all-too-relatable performance as London-based Bridget.

The sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason, was released in 2004, and the widely-acclaimed third film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, followed 12 years later in 2016.

At this point, it’s pretty impossible to picture anybody other than Renée as the onscreen personification of Bridget, but public opinion didn’t always sway in her favor.

Studio Canal / Via youtube.com In fact, many Brits were outraged when the Texas-born star was first linked to the role, with Bridget Jones already a prominent feature in pop culture thanks to Helen Fielding’s novels on which the movies are based.

Fans of the book feared that an American would not be able to master the English accent or capture Bridget’s quintessential Britishness, and actors such as Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham Carter were suggested instead.

The backlash was so severe that Renée’s costar Hugh Grant even came forward to defend her ahead of filming, telling Entertainment Weekly in May 2000: “I’ve met Renée a couple of times, and she is bang-on. She’s very funny, and she’s been living in England a long time now, mastering the accent. It’ll be a triumph. I know it will.”

To prepare for the role, then-31-year-old Renée worked undercover at a publishing house in London. At the start of the first movie, Bridget is a publicity assistant at a publishing company, so this was to give Renée a taste of what her character’s day-to-day life would be like.

Jim Smeal / Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images It also helped her practice her English accent, as well as immerse herself in British culture.

It’s worth mentioning that at this point in her career, Renée was a pretty well-established Hollywood actor, having starred in movies like Jerry Maguire and Me, Myself & Irene.

Still, she was able to blend into the office environment undetected, thanks to her new identity.

In addition to taking on a new name — Bridget Cavendish — and pretending to be English, Renée gained a significant amount of weight for the role, which transformed her image.

And in a new interview with Hugh for Vogue magazine, Renée has opened up about her experience of working undercover for “a month or two” — and even recalled being brutally confronted with nasty articles about herself while working at the publishing house.

Paras Griffin / Getty Images Renée also shared an anecdote about one of her coworkers failing to recognize her despite reading a book with Renée’s face on the cover at the time.

“How did Bridget come about for you?” Hugh asked his long-time costar in the interview. “There was a hullabaloo at the time: ‘Oh, we can’t have an American playing this British icon.’ I remember that.”

Theo Wargo / WireImage “I became aware of it when I worked at Picador,” Renée replied. “I was ‘Bridget Cavendish’ because Jonathan Cavendish, the film’s producer, was very good friends with the gentleman who was the editor of Picador.”

“Part of my job was to take the newspaper clippings from the daily papers and file them under Helen Fielding’s file, as they represented her. And I started having to clip these articles about this ‘crap American actor’ who was set to play Bridget Jones,” she went on.

Hugh then asked if she was able to be “natural” at Picador, or if her coworkers thought “there’s the famous American Renée Zellweger poncing around our office,” and Renée insisted that “nobody knew.”

Ron Galella / Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images “How could they not? You were well known then,” Hugh asked.

“I guess not,” Renée laughed. “Maybe I was out of context, or maybe it was having more chubby cheeks. It was odd. One of the ladies who worked in the office was reading the Anna Quindlen novel One True Thing, and they made a film out of it [that I starred in], so I’m on the cover of the book.”

“And she’s there telling me about having finished it on the Tube on the way to work and how marvelous it was,” Renée revealed.

In addition to working at the publishing house, Renée saw voice and dialogue coach Barbara Berkery “three times a day” to perfect her accent, including a meeting before work, during lunch, and “either through dinner or before dinner.”

Well, it’s safe to say that Renée’s commitment to Bridget definitely paid off! Do you think that she was the right actor for the role? Let me know in the comments!