Bridget's back - and on Good Morning Britain! Star Renee seen moonlighting at ITV in preparation for new film

The return of Bridget: Actress Renee Zellweger

The return of Bridget: Actress Renee Zellweger

The saga over whether the third Bridget Jones film will ever appear seems to have been going on for ever. But after years of huffing and puffing, I have major intelligence that confirms the movie is now all systems go.

This week, the movie’s apple-cheeked star Renee Zellweger was spotted attending editorial briefings at ITV’s breakfast show Good Morning Britain.

Over the next few weeks, staff have been warned she will be popping in to attend various meetings for the show, as well as its sister programme Lorraine.

Apparently, it’s all part of her preparation for her next outing as author Helen Fielding’s much-loved creation. The movie, provisionally titled Bridget Jones’s Baby, is set to star Colin Firth as her lover Mark Darcy, but Hugh Grant, who plays sex mad rotter Daniel Cleaver, is not returning after disagreements over the script.

The movie will be substantially different from Fielding’s third novel, Mad About The Boy, in which her heroine is a 50-something unemployed mother of two and Darcy is dead.

It is thought the latest film will see her keen for a first child and continue her job working with trashy breakfast TV programme Sit Up Britain, hence the research at ITV.

‘We are all under strict instruction not to take any pictures of Renee. And above all, not to put anything out on social media about her being here,’ says my source.

‘We’ve been told she is spending time in the office “for research purposes only”.’ 

While preparing for her first outing as Bridget, Zellweger did work experience in the London offices of publisher Picador, sporting a Sloaney accent and operating under the pseudonym Bridget Cavendish.

Work experience: Renee Zellweger, pictured as Bridget Jones, was spotted at editorial briefings
On air: Good Morning Britain hosts Ben Shepard and Susanna Reid

Work experience: Renee Zellweger (left as Bridget Jones) was spotted attending editorial briefings at ITV’s morning show Good Morning Britain, which is presented by Ben Shephard Susanna Reid (pictured right on air)

She managed to survive two weeks in the press office without anyone there ever catching on.

She later said: ‘There was a woman at a desk near me who read a novel called One True Thing during her breaks. I’d appeared in a movie of the novel and my face was on the front cover.

‘I’m amazed she never made the connection between her book and the person at the next desk.’

The first film, Bridget Jones’s Diary, took £172 million around the world so there is a lot riding on its success.

Revisiting Bridget will also require one further piece of method acting for Zellweger. The petite star famously put on more than two stone to play the size 16 character, by consuming 3,000 calories a day. She ate her way through 12 courses of fatty foods each day, snacking on chocolates, crisps and sugary drinks.

Method acting: The petite star famously put on more than two stone to play the size 16 character, pictured

Method acting: The petite star famously put on more than two stone to play the size 16 character, pictured

New Bond girl makes Brosnan a granddad

It’s the new Bond girl! Pierce Brosnan, 62, is thrilled at the arrival of his first grandchild.

Sean, Pierce’s only child from his first marriage to the late actress Cassandra Harris, has had a daughter and named her after his mother.

The former 007 captions the pic of the baby: ‘My first grandchild, Marley May Cassandra Brosnan . . . gorgeous if I do say so myself . . .!’

Married: Bond star Pierce with Cassandra, who died in 1991
Proud: The former 007 captions the pic of the baby: ‘My first grandchild, Marley May Cassandra Brosnan . . . gorgeous if I do say so myself . . .!’

Proud: Sean, Pierce’s only child from his first marriage to the late actress Cassandra Harris has had a daughter (right) and named her after his mother. Left,  Bond star Pierce with Cassandra, who died in 1991

Cassandra had two children from a previous marriage, Charlotte and Christopher, whom Pierce adopted and they both took his surname.

Charlotte died in 2013, but had two children of her own, Isabella and Lucas.

MENTIONING NO NAMES... 

Which former England cricketer still possesses some rather nifty handiwork?

Every time he enters his local supermarket up north, staff spot him shoplifting...

Pierce has always referred to Charlotte and Christopher as his children, even saying of Charlotte, on her death two years ago: ‘On June 28 my darling daughter Charlotte Emily passed on to eternal life, having succumbed to ovarian cancer.’

Odd he hasn’t extended the courtesy to Charlotte’s kids. 

He’s built a career on selling sex — via the wardrobes of stars such as David Beckham and Brad Pitt, who model his wares — but designer Tom Ford has declared himself to be unsexy. 

‘I feel less sexy now that I’m a father — and there’s a scientific reason,’ says the 54-year-old, who has a three-year-old son, Alexander, with his husband. ‘I read that men who are primary care-givers have lower testosterone levels, because nature wants the man to stay with the children and not wander off.’

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