Why Hugh Grant Initially Thought Casting Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones Was a “Stretch”

Hugh Grant is shedding light on a bit of Bridget Jones’s Diary drama.

In a new documentary, Being Bridget Jones, the Love Actually star shared why Renée Zellweger playing the lead role in the 2000 rom-com caused somewhat of a controversy. 

“There was a whole scandal about why isn’t this a British actress? I didn’t know Renée Zellweger, and a Texan playing a British character, it did seem like a stretch,” the 60-year-old actor explained. “She was told to kind of, well she thought she better loosen it up a bit.”

Renée clearly took the advice, as Hugh later added, “Then she came in and it was Princess Margaret having had a stroke. But a week later it was a bang on.” A bang on indeed, as both stars went on to reprise their characters in the 2004 sequel The Edge of Reason. Zellweger took on the franchise’s third and final film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, without her co-star in 2016.