Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy Special with Sally Phillips & Alexandra Haddow

Summary

Podcast Summary: Sentimental Garbage – "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy Special with Sally Phillips & Alexandra Haddow"

Release Date: April 3, 2025

Overview

In this special episode of Sentimental Garbage, host Caroline O'Donoghue celebrates the digital release of Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy alongside co-host Alexandra Haddow and special guest Sally Phillips. The trio delves deep into the latest installment of the beloved Bridget Jones series, sharing personal anecdotes, behind-the-scenes insights, and heartfelt reflections on the franchise's evolution over the past two and a half decades.

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1. Celebration and Introduction

Timestamp: [00:51:44]

Caroline O'Donoghue kicks off the episode by expressing her excitement about the release of Mad About the Boy. She highlights the event held at the Ham Yard Hotel in Soho, which was facilitated by Universal. Sally Phillips joins the conversation, bringing her iconic character Shazza into the discussion.

Notable Quote:

"Mad about the Boy is available to rent or buy at home now. Thank you so much to Universal for facilitating this amazing event." – Caroline O'Donoghue [00:00:35]

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2. Personal Journeys with Bridget Jones Films

Timestamp: [03:08 – 05:02]

Caroline and Alexandra reminisce about their first experiences watching the Bridget Jones films. They share nostalgic memories of seeing the movies in their youth, discussing how Bridget Jones has been a constant companion through their formative years.

Notable Quotes:

"I've been on a journey with these movies. They've been around what feels like my entire thinking life." – Caroline O'Donoghue [03:08]

"I was about to give you a hug, but we've been backstage for three hours together." – Alexandra Haddow [02:34]

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3. Character Development and Relationships

Timestamp: [11:00 – 18:23]

The conversation shifts to the character arcs within Mad About the Boy. Caroline praises Renee Zellweger’s portrayal of Bridget, emphasizing the depth of her physical acting. They compare Bridget to Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, noting the similarities and unique qualities that Bridget brings to the screen.

Notable Quotes:

"Bridget is asset rich in style poor." – Caroline O'Donoghue [09:52]

"Carrie kill these men. What's happening to these men?" – Alexandra Haddow [11:00]

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4. Emotional Impact and Themes

Timestamp: [16:37 – 18:23]

The hosts discuss the emotional depth of Mad About the Boy, particularly focusing on Bridget's experience with widowhood. They highlight poignant scenes, such as Bridget and her father’s interaction in the hospital, and explore themes of loss, resilience, and self-discovery.

Notable Quotes:

"It can't be fixed by a book or by advice." – Caroline O'Donoghue [15:39]

"We were like, oh God, maybe." – Alexandra Haddow [19:16]

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5. Behind-the-Scenes Insights with Sally Phillips

Timestamp: [38:54 – 51:44]

Sally Phillips shares intriguing behind-the-scenes stories from the making of Mad About the Boy. She recounts her experiences working with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, including unforgettable moments on set, such as her awkward lunch with Colin and her chaotic time in Thailand.

Notable Quotes:

"I accidentally screamed. To this day, I don't know why, but I think it was something to do with size." – Sally Phillips [49:27]

"Everything it's possible to get wrong, I have got wrong." – Sally Phillips [65:58]

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6. Evolution of Relationships and Friendships

Timestamp: [52:09 – 60:36]

The discussion transitions to how relationships and friendships evolve over time, both within the Bridget Jones universe and in real life. The hosts reflect on the transformation of characters like Daniel Cleaver from antagonistic figures to more nuanced, relatable individuals.

Notable Quotes:

"They breed and they marry very young." – Alexandra Haddow [18:24]

"Women of a certain age. You mean your age? You mean your friends, you mean your peers." – Caroline O'Donoghue [59:12]

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7. Cultural Significance and Impact

Timestamp: [33:07 – 43:35]

Caroline and Alexandra explore the cultural impact of the Bridget Jones series, discussing how it mirrors societal changes and women's evolving roles. They highlight the series' ability to balance humor with serious themes, making Bridget Jones a relatable and enduring character.

Notable Quotes:

"Mustn't do this. Must have it arrested for sociological reasons pertaining to da da da da." – Caroline O'Donoghue [29:23]

"Bridget started in a box in Zone five." – Alexandra Haddow [12:32]

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8. Listener Interaction and Advice

Timestamp: [53:16 – 66:04]

The episode opens up to questions from the audience. Sally Phillips provides advice for the next generation, humorously acknowledging her own missteps and emphasizing the importance of authenticity and learning from mistakes.

Notable Quotes:

"Ooh, no, no. I have got everything wrong." – Sally Phillips [65:58]

"Don't listen to me or to any comedienne." – Sally Phillips [65:58]

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9. Final Reflections and Wrap-Up

Timestamp: [66:04 – End]

In the concluding segments, the hosts reflect on the enduring nature of Bridget Jones and the sense of community among the cast and crew. Sally Phillips shares heartfelt sentiments about her friendships formed during the films, underscoring the personal connections that make the Bridget Jones franchise special.

Notable Quotes:

"Colin Firth's really funny as well. They're so funny. It's like they pretend not to be funny because we're viewed as slightly low rent." – Sally Phillips [52:42]

"Real people, real stories, real lives." – Alexandra Haddow [51:44]

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Conclusion

This special episode of Sentimental Garbage offers an intimate look into the world of Bridget Jones, enriched by personal stories and professional insights from Caroline O'Donoghue, Alexandra Haddow, and Sally Phillips. From nostalgic reminiscences to deep dives into character development, the conversation celebrates the lasting legacy of Bridget Jones while providing thoughtful reflections on love, loss, and personal growth.

Highlights:

• Emotional Depth: The discussion emphasizes the poignant moments in Mad About the Boy, particularly concerning Bridget's widowhood and personal growth.

• Behind-the-Scenes Anecdotes: Sally Phillips shares entertaining and heartfelt stories from the film set, revealing the camaraderie and challenges faced by the cast.

• Cultural Impact: The hosts explore how the Bridget Jones series has mirrored and influenced societal views on women's roles and relationships over the years.

• Personal Connections: The episode underscores the strong bonds among the cast, portraying the Bridget Jones films as more than just movies but as shared experiences among friends.

Final Quote:

"Real people, real stories, real lives." – Alexandra Haddow [51:44]

This insightful and engaging summary encapsulates the essence of the podcast episode, making it accessible and informative for those who haven't yet listened.

Transcript

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

On average, you'll have to wait 31 days to see an OBGYN. And if you're dealing with an infection or outbreak, you know you need care fast. That's where WISP comes in. Connect with a U.S. licensed provider online and pick up safe, effective treatment at your local pharmacy that same day. Plus, get birth control and more delivered in all 50 states. Take control with comprehensive sexual and reproductive care, all from your phone. Wisp. That's. Hello, wisp.com. the waiting room can wait. Hi, everyone. I'm interrupting the Sentimental Garbage season break to give you a really, really special treat and something I really enjoyed doing. So to celebrate Bridget Jones Mad about the Boy being available to rent or buy at home, we did a little event in the Hamyard Hotel in soho with Alexandra Haddow, who always joins me for Sentimental Garbage live, and Sally Phillips, who, who plays Shazzar in Bridget Jones, as well as so many iconic comedy characters in Smack the Pony, in Veep, in Miranda. Like, she's just amazing and so much fun. And she joins us for the back half of this podcast. Mad about the Boy is available to rent or buy at home now. Thank you so much to Universal for facilitating this amazing event. I hope we get to do more things like this because it was such a treat for me and for everybody there. Okay, enjoy. Hi. Thank you so much. Hello. Mic doesn't seem to be working. Anyone? Hello and welcome to Sentimental Garbage, the podcast where we talk about the culture we love that society sometimes makes us write a diary about. And we're here today to celebrate the digital release of Bridget Jones Mad about the Boy. Who's seen it? It's a very good thing you've seen it because we'll be talking about a lot. All spoilers. He died, by the way. Very sad. Jim Broadbent, too. Yeah. So it's gonna be all spoilers chat today. And of course, I'm here joined by my frequent Sentimental Garbage Live co host, the woman that we all call. The woman we all call Mrs. Alexandra Haddo, because that is her name. Please give a round of applause for Alexandra Haddo. Hello. Hello.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I was about to give you a hug, but we've been backstage for three hours together.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Just really running through every single moment of every single film.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I know. Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, we were talking. We went to see this movie together at the Everyman on Sunday because we wanted it to be, like, really fresh in our heads. And it really struck me when we were watching it together as we, like, got a cup of tea in a china cup delivered to Our Everyman's sofa. I was like, wow, I have been on a journey with these movies. They've been around what feels like my entire thinking life.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, when you were 11, nothing before that.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, everyone has that moment where they sort of come online before then blob. And then 2002, Bridget Jones gets released. Then you're suddenly, you got thoughts, you got findings. Yeah. You're an online. What was your experience seeing them for the first time?

[Alexandra Haddow]

I think it was the first film that I went to see with just me and my mum when I was. Oh, my gosh, I think I was 13. And I remember going to watch it and being like, I'm gonna move to London and I'm gonna have this mad gang of mates. And I wanted to be Shazza. So tonight I am not going to play it cool. And I just. Yeah, I literally just remember seeing this Life in the City and I was like, God, I can't wait to be fucked around by horrible men, you know? And I achieved my dreams.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You really have. It really strikes me, I assume, that most people who are in the room tonight live in London or London adjacent or have lived here for a while. That probably everybody in this room saw this movie when they were pretty young and went, God, I'd love to live in London and have cool friends. And like, guys, we all did it just one time or another. We all just have a round of applause for all of us.

[Alexandra Haddow]

At the very least, genuinely a running theme of the scene in the first film where Tom has the one hit in the 80s and she says, realized it was quite enough to get him laid for the whole of the 90s. I had a friend called Rowan who got through to judges houses on X Factor. And whenever someone would say, oh, excuse me, as in to brush past him, he'd be like. He'd do the Tomline. And he'd be like, yeah, it is me. Judges houses Talisa Greece wasn't her actual house Talisa.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's quite a guess.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes. They were called the Keys. They should have got through. Honestly, look them up on YouTube. Anyway, I'm digressing.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But, like, I remember when I first saw. It's so interesting that you say with your mom, because, like, I remember the books coming into my house through my mum and my sister.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, we get it. You read and I'm an idiot.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I remember once upon a time, this podcast was a books podcast, and I was like, they take too long to read movies instead. But then, like, I remember when the movies came Out. Like I. It was such a strange. This experience with almost no other movie. It's such a visceral memory for me because, like, I was my first year of secondary school and I was having like a sleepover with my new friends. Like my new grown up friends. And it was Halloween and I was. My job was to like rent like the scariest movies. Like Rent, like, you know, the Exorcist or whatever was probably the Blair Witch Project at the time. And I was in the video rental place with my mom and I just had a complete panic attack. I totally bottled it. I just got so scared of the idea of being scared in front of my new friends. I know.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Because why do we do that?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I know.

[Alexandra Haddow]

It's the worst possible thing you can do.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, I'm hosting a sleepover for the first time ever with new people and now I'm going to piss myself in a sleeping bag on the floor of my own home. And I remember I had this big freak out in front of my mom and she was like, I'm going to say that I didn't let you rent the horror movies and we're gonna get these instead. And she just lifted up Bridget Jones and Shrek 2, two of the finest films of the last 30 years. And I remember everyone was so kind of pity with me and being like, oh, for God's sake. And then it's such a. One of my most visceral, like, early. I am a fan of cinema moments. Was like, we were all watching it and you know the iconic moment where she fakes the call with FR Leavis.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, when she.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It turns out Real Guy. Real Guy found that out.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I didn't know that until I read your notes about this event that he was real.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I remember years later referencing him at college in an essay being like.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Fr.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Leavers who died in 1978. Amazing.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But that bit in the office and then the F comes across the screen, that was my Dylan going electric. I was like, the film can have a swear on the. On the screen. Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. Check that out. New friends in year seven.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Swearing.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's not the Blair Witch Project, but there is a big swear on the telly.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, everyone being excited.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You know, the internal monologue kind of being, you know, you sort of hearing her thoughts at the same time and seeing it as well. Yeah. It's a cinematic device that you rarely see.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Now let's cheers to that. Cheers. Just cinematic devices.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I've said cinematic device on stage for the first and last time tonight to.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Talk about more the experience of, like, London through the eyes of Bridget Jones. I think it was so tantalizing to me being through all of these films because it was so more than like, even more so than like, like, even Carrie and Sex and the City or whatever. It's even more woven in with real life because, like, she would go like that. That party that she goes to that actually has Salman Rushdie and Jeffrey Archer at it.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Well, I want to be in the meeting room when they were with Salman Rushdie's agent and they were like, so listen, you're one of the greatest minds of our time. Thank you for all the stuff. Sorry, you've been through a bit of a time recently with the old fatwa.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. This would have been mid fatwa.

[Alexandra Haddow]

This is quite a political statement to get Salman in the.

[Sally Phillips]

Do you know what I mean?

[Alexandra Haddow]

I like being like, so we've got this. So there's this book. We're gonna turn it into a film, see how it goes. You're in it for him to be like, I'm in.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Am I talking about, like, the political situation that I'm entangled in? Like, no. Several people are gonna ask you where the loo is.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So incredible.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Like, who was he friends with on the crew?

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Or who did they originally want to be there? Like, author wise, it was maybe a bit more pop culture and some producer forgot to ask them and someone was like, does anyone know anyone? Some runner was just like, my uncle is Salman Rushdie.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Call him, call him, call him.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Now.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I love how, like the cameo of Mad about the Boy, that slightly doesn't make any sense, but also is perfect as Isla Fisher for two Isla fishermen. Did everyone else clock Isla Fisher for two seconds?

[Alexandra Haddow]

Me, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because in my head, because I mean, she was like, quite recently married to Sacha Baron Cohen. To me, it's just like her. That was just Isla Fisher flopping out of her house in North London.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That actually wasn't part of the film. They just kind of caught her.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

They just caught her and they were like, oh, yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I feel like maybe she's a fan of the film and she wanted a cameo. The difference between Bridget and Carrie and stuff is that even though she's living, as we've all heard a lot in the past 25 years, she's living in a one bed flat in Borough Market. But she's not glamorous. Do you know what I mean? Like, she's got all the. All the cool stuff that we want in terms, she's Asset rich.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She's asset rich in style poor.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Style poor.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's what I love about that bloody fictional woman. It's so good because, like, yeah, I love that about Bridget. About. And I think working title in general has always been really. You can see that in like Billy Elliot and all these things where they have this perfect way of like summarizing these really, like, non romantic, romantic settings. Like they. They always make things look the right amount of a little bit shit.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, and like that was with Bridget's flat in Edinburgh Market.

[Alexandra Haddow]

It was like the interior of it isn't fancy at all.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. But you also, you feel like you know what that couch smells like and you want to cuddle up on it, be hungover on it. And they just do that better than anybody. And then like, I think what's so important is that, like. And what really separates this from, like, I felt so cozy and warm watching this movie and so like, I was coming home again in a way that, like, not that we should like, dumb down other media, but like, in a way I just couldn't get. And then just like that. Because it's like they sense the characters. And it's such an interesting parallel to have because it's like Carrie Bradshaw is the New York Bridget Jones. And you know, both of them are widows and both of them. We've watched them over 30 years. But like.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And I thought about the widow parallel there. Yeah, yeah, but Carrie kill these men. What's happening to these men?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But like with Carrie, they're like, oh. They didn't understand what people loved about her to begin with, which was kind of her scrappiness. And then so they were like, what they love is watching her wear insane clothes. And then just like, they just kept like the wealth kept on doubling on itself. Whereas, like with Bridget it's like, well, yeah, duh, she's married to Mark Darcy. He's like a toff and also a barrister. So like, obviously she has a massive house in high. But we can't buy his style. And so her clothes kind of remained a bit wrong.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You know, I feel like PhDs will be written on, you know, Pathetic fallacy where the weather reflects whatever's going on in the clock. I feel like Bridget Jones hair in this film. The side low pony. Come on.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No side low pony.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I've never fantasized about hair serum so much as in this film because it's obviously trying to show that she's like a bit in disarray. And I get that and everything, but I feel like, that was. The hair was symbolic all the way through. And I was like, are we going to get, like, a highlights moment at the end? But we didn't, because life isn't about highlights, okay? Yeah. And it's completely that. But then, I mean, I feel like I've been let down on both sides of the Atlantic there because I worked in magazines for years because I thought. And Vogue and stuff like that. Because I thought. I looked at Carrie Bradshaw and I was like, well, obviously, it pays you a million pounds a year to write one column. And then also the Bridget Jones side was like. And you can live in Zone one. Cool. I'm living in a box in Zone five.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You do your ordinary everyday shopping in Borough Market?

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, I just do the weekly shop. Buying duck eggs.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. I gotta say, in this movie, there was, like, so many. I mean, I cried a lot. Did everyone cry a lot in this movie? Like, I kind of expected it because of, like, the. The, you know, Mark Darcy being dead and everything. But like, even that moment where she's on her first day with Rockster, which. Which is a normal name, which isn't.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Referenced enough, I felt like they all.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Just accept it because I was like.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I looked it up just before I was like, oh, did he say his name was, like, Rockwell?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And then he does say something.

[Alexandra Haddow]

He says something, doesn't he? And then he says, but it's Rockstar. And his full name is Rockstar McDuff. Which.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Someone's been on IMDb before the event.

[Alexandra Haddow]

There's Scottish prog rock band, doesn't it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Roxta MacDuff.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Roxter MacDuff.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But she's. Yeah, she's on a date with him. And he says, do you know this area? And she kind of looks around and she's like, oh, I used to. And that's just like. I think Renee Zellweger. Like, I just. It still amazes me that she's Roxie Hart and she's Bridget Jones kind of thing. The range on the lady.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, my.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's crazy. And I think, you know, obviously, as the movies have gone on in all four of them, I think that, like, the physical comedy of it ratchets up a lot. And, like, she's, like, on a par with, like, a silent movie actor. The way she's able to do those physical moments. I think because she's so beautiful, we forget, like, how talented she is as, like, a physical actor. But there were moments where even the small moments where, like, when she was kind of going through Mark Darcy's Box of effects and she sort of rubs his watch against her face. I can't. It was so. It's almost like that bit of physical acting did more than like any line of dialogue of I miss my husband. Like, it was so gorgeous. And similarly, like, I thought this like, great, like obviously there's great dialogue in it, but these like silent moments, like when she's with Jim Broadbent with her dad.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That was the saddest bit for me, the whole film.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Tears, rolling, streaming.

[Alexandra Haddow]

We just looked around each other in the cinema, didn't we? We were like, oh God, it was, it was. Jim Broadbent was incredible. And he was in it for like 22 seconds.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I know. Yeah, like totally, like, you know, that whole business with God, it's a Bella Rossellini getting nominated for an Oscar for Conclave for being in for three seconds and just.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, really?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That's what Jim Broadbent needs to have.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah. He fucking deserves it. He really does. And like this sort of. And what I loved about it as well because like, I think we all feel like really protective over Brenda Jones as a character because we've gotten to know her through the books and like through the movies and we all have the sense of like, what she would do, what she wouldn't do. And I think what's so crucial to like to the maintaining the integrity of her character is that like, you know, if you think of her back in the 90s where she was always like reading a self help book, going on some random diet, going on some random exercise regime or like trying to read like Susan Faludi or trying. She's always on this like endless quest of self improvement. It's very 90s to think that like a book or a diet or whatever can like fix you two bowls of.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Special K a day will change your life.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Drop a jean size by starving yourself. Yes, exactly.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But like it's so important to her character. And I think that what's so like touching about watching her experience widowhood is that like it's this thing that can't be fixed by a book or by advice. And like you see this like great protracted scene of everyone in her life being like, the advice is this. The advice is this. The advice is this, like, do you know, don't care about dating. Don't do care about dating. Care about the kids. Don't care about the kids, whatever. And then like the whole thing, it's like this Greek chorus of all these conflicting opinions and then you just have her in the Hospital room with her dad. Just being like, it's not enough to survive Bridget. You have to live that night. But just, like, the way that those two actors just hold their eyes on each other for so long, it just wrecked me.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I know. I thought, why have they made Jim Broadbent be dead as well? Can she not just have her dad?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Like, have her lovely dad?

[Alexandra Haddow]

She's lost Mark Darcy. Just give her a dad. You need the dad anchor if you've lost the Mark Darcy anchor.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You know, I was listening to. I think it was director with the. An interview with the director, and he said something about the thing about being in your 50s is that you. You sit at this portal between life and death more than you ever had before because you've got parents who are dying and friends who are dying and stuff. And like, the kind of gallows humor of that, I think is done really well.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. You have to kind of get through it. And also, the interesting angle with this film as well is that in the, you know, the kind of old school ones. By the way, we were talking earlier about how in the first film she's 32 and everyone's like, can't believe you're single. As if you'd ever have somebody being like, 32. Oh, my God. Yeah. She's acting like she's sort of like 55 or whatever. But now that she's not single, you know, in the first one, it's like the ostensible thing is you're single because you're not desirable. Oh, no, Bridget, nobody wants you. That kind of thing. But now she's single because the perfect man died through no fault of her own. And so it's all this kind of, like, tentative.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Exactly. It's always about, like, so much about that iconic scene from the first movie, which is replicated in this movie, which is at dinner with the smug marrieds.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And this idea that, like, you're a problem to solve and everybody kind of enjoys kicking around your problems and solving them because they're happy and you're not, and, like, the kind of. The awkwardness of that, but also the attempt to scrape back dignity in those moments as well.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And the fact that it was for Bridget, for her, like, sort of set of friends. And I think the kind of. The sort of setting of Bridget is always like, she is sort of maybe, like, I don't know, middle class, maybe lower middle class. But everyone she knows seems to be really posh.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And we were talking about this backstage about how whether or not it's a Problem that you're single can be very class based as well. We're both talking about posh people we know. And they breed and they marry very young.

[Alexandra Haddow]

They do. And then it's someone from the boys school opposite the road.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And that is it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because they've all known each other since they were 9. By the time they're 22, they're like, well, I've known you my whole life. We might as well, I'm an old.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Maid, come on, let's do this. But yeah, and then she kind of, she trumps them with the posh ness with Mark Darcy, but it's as an adult and she's fucked about a bit first.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Which is the way to be.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's a noble way to do it.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. Some agreement around it. This has turned into a rally girl. There we go.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Someone came to their Mark d'arcy later. And we salute you.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You got to know yourself first, by the way.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Also, I had heard because, you know, obviously in the book it follows the same plot that Mark D'Arcy dies. Sorry, spoiler for anyone. And then, you know, when she's going to the dinner party of the smug married and he's. It's obviously, you know, she's imagining it, but you don't know that yet. And he's walking along and she's like, hello, Mr. Darcy. And he's like, hello, Mrs. Darcy. I honestly thought, oh, I've had a fever dream that he dies. Like I'm just, oh, great. This is just gonna be like an hour and 40 minutes of them having a great middle aged life. Maybe they get into swinging. Maybe that's what it is. What's gonna be the story here? And then he fades away. Then I was like, oh God, maybe.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I'm a sociopath, but I got over Mark Darcy being dead pretty quickly.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

Because I don't know if you guys.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Were the same because like Daniel Cleaver is a character I can watch for.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Hours, give him his own spin off.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

If literally the movie was them two being flatmates and almost shagging but not shagging, I would be like, yeah, perfect. As much as I love Chiwetel Edgy 4 as much as I love Leo Woodall, I could have just had the two of them being flatmates and it would be great. But like Mark D'Arcy, as much as I adore, like those little like gemstone moments that we have with him in the franchise where it's like him like making the omelette with her and like stir it una Kind of thing. He doesn't need sitting. All that stuff. The charm of him is that they're little moments and they're quiet moments and they, like. I don't know if they really sustain a whole movie worth of longing or worth of, like, couple hanging out together.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And so you're suggesting she killed him?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She killed him. She threw him on a landmine in the Sudan. She was like, I've got the house, got us kids. But.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Yeah, exactly. And you were saying earlier how Bridget kind of. She's at her best when she's slightly exposed.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She's slightly exposed.

[Alexandra Haddow]

She's trying to live. As Jim Broadbent said, to live, not to survive. But we also were obsessed with them being friends now, her and Daniel Cleaver.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I love it. Obsessed.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I have Daniel Cleavers in my life. I highly recommend it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

What, like men that used to shag and now are just around. Yeah, yeah. Are they into knives?

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes. Men that. Men that fucked me around in my 20s. Then we didn't speak for a couple of years now. Great friends. If I had a kid, I'd very much Liz Hurley and make him the Godfather, you know?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. Like, what I love about that as well is that, like, at the end, like, the last we see of Daniel Cleaver in the first movie is her, like, triumphantly saying, like, if this job involves being around you for even one more second, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's arist.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

R, E, S, B, C, T. You.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Can really age the film by the Saddam Hussein's ass line.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And, like, you're so like, yeah, fuck that guy. I hope we see him again. And then you. The way that character has evolved over 25 years. First of all, what I think is very interesting is that also I think is, you swear, I know loads of posh people. I know, like two, but like, that it's so true to life that posh people, they seem sort of normal in their 20s, but by the time they're 50, it's.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. Every scene in this film, Hugh Grant's like.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Because like, the first movie, he's like. He's like, yes, Jones. I'm not to Cambridge. And that's where I know Arcy Darcy. And then by this one, he's like.

[Alexandra Haddow]

A World War II general barking orders. World War I general, I should say. He's just like.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I love it because it's like. Because, like, I think Hugh Grant is finally, like, in the last few years, he's really, like, getting his due as an actor.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I think people really acknowledge I love him.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And he's like somebody who, like, Sally Phillips was telling us backstage, somebody who, like, famously writes a lot of his own dialogue. He just kind of throws the script away because he has a really intense sense of who his character is. And I think it's just so right that of course, that character gets more kind of posh and aloof and strange and whatever. But also that, like, I didn't even mind that he's still going out with 20 year olds because, like, that's what.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You want from the aging playboy.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

If they settle down with someone sensible, you'd be like, now, come on, now, we've got to have her around. She wasn't as fun as this woman.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

When it opened on him at a poetry reading called the Gaslight. I know.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I can't believe you noticed that. I didn't know that.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I was obsessed with that detail. And it was so important that, like, his new girlfriend, Germanotta or whatever, she looks like Emily Ratajkowska. I thought it was her for a second. And she's reading her spoken word poem off her phone at a distance. Just so fun. And then his ringtone. The fact that his ringtone is hello Moto, like, really, absolutely killed me. I don't know why that detail fucked me up.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Is that, like, a brilliant commentary on the fact that he's aging out of what's hot? Or is it a sponsorship deal with hello Moto that they're like, fuck, no one's buying us anymore? Daniel Cleaver.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Cute Grand Legitimizer.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I also said to Caroline that my favorite thing about Daniel Cleaver, amongst all his brilliant lines, one of which Sodomy and Sainsbury's.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

What? Yeah, Sodomy and Sainsbury's. You know, that was a Hugh Grant line. And they were like, fine. But then again, I've always thought. This has always been my little headcanon about Bridget Jones. Is that one of the reasons why poshmen are obsessed with her? And, like, everyone just. Nobody can. Like, once they've shagged her, they just can't let her go. Is that she loves anal.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Because there's a scene that whenever I watch it, I'm like, what I think about.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I know what scene you're gonna say.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah, I'm aware. She's on the mini break with Daniel Cleaver and they had great sex. And she goes, daniel, I think what you just did is illegal in several countries.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And then he goes, do you remember what he says?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Shut up or I'll do it again.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Shut up or do I get it? Then he goes, pop a pillow in your mouth. Bite down. Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Does he say that? Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

It might not be pillow, but he says, bite down on this. But like, it's when the drone camera's coming out. I've thought about this too much, haven't I?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I can't believe everyone's been talking about, like, Britta Jones and the Urban family, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no. Is she into a yes.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Look, the Daniel Cleavers of this world aren't sticking around to BABYsit your kids. 30 years old if you're not taking it. You know what I mean?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

While we're on the love interest and sex in general, what did you think of Rockster and Mr. Wallacher?

[Alexandra Haddow]

I liked them both because I think we've all had a fling with somebody. Where your mates are like, but what do you talk about? And you're like, I don't really. I think he had three lines. I think he was very much there to be a lovely, hunky, nice tree fellow.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Tree fellow garbage man.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Tree fellow, Garbage.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

He's a garbage man.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, He's a garbage man.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah. Garbage study person. He is, yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And do you know what? I also really liked that they didn't really fixate on the age gap. It wasn't really mentioned.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

They got over it pretty quickly, actually.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. They mentioned when they went on the date, he said something like he liked older women or something like that. And she was kind. She, you know, hadn't really dated a younger guy before or something, but it wasn't really like her friend, like all her mates at Better Women, the show weren't.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You and I are obsessed with the show. Better Women. We just cackled. We laughed so much louder than anybody else in the theater over that, I think, because we met working in women's media and the scene where, like, she. Bridget, is watching at home as her friend Miranda. It's Miranda and Talisa. Is that it?

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, yeah. Talitha.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. And she's watching them and they're like, you know, making sausages together or whatever. And then it's like. And after this, we'll be talking to the Home Secretary about climate change, Home.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Secretary about the budget. And then later on, we've got a man from Yorkshire who's married a squirrel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And that was like, literally sum up things, three years of our life in one line of dialogue.

[Sally Phillips]

Was that.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, that was exactly it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I was obsessed with that and like.

[Alexandra Haddow]

A feature on whatever war was going on at the time. And then, like, how to look younger but how you also shouldn't want to look younger.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah. And like, can lipstick be concealer too? We find out.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I love women's media. It's bonkers.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Absolutely bonkers.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And the thing is, you pick up men's media and it's like, here's an interview with an actor. Here's a gadget, here's a smell.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Here's Gary Oldman.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Always, always, always Gary Oldman, Gary Lineker, the two Gary's propping up masculinity. I thought what was, like, interesting about the two men was that, like, it kind of is because, like, she always has to be the center of a love triangle. And Daniel cleaver and Mark D'Arcy is like. Daniel Cleaver is the sort of fuck boy Ignorance reasons. It's a horny film, really, under this new critical eye. And so it's like Daniel Cleaver is a sort of like, fuckboy or whatever who's unreliable. And then Mike D'Arcy is the sort of straight laced. Seems a bit awkward and a bit off, but actually has a heart of gold. And I thought, like, they did a really good job of like, kind of replicating the dynamic but not making it too. Same. Same.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. Because Rockster isn't as much of an out and out asshole as Daniel cleaver.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And Mr. Wallacher isn't. I love how we're just still calling him by his formal name, by the way. Mr. Wallacher.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Mr. Wallacher. Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You know, from Wallace and Gromit, the Christmas. I kept being like. I keep going to say, yes, Mr. Wallacher, and. Yeah, and he's. He's still a nice guy. He's just a little bit rigid and a little bit uptight, isn't he?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And doesn't believe in life after death, which he does in the end.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That was really interesting, wasn't it? They had the whole. Yeah. I would love to have actually seen more of that. The idea that, like, Bridget is like this character who's always kind of making up philosophies as she goes along. And like, one of the things I've always like, to me, it's so central to, like, the Bridget Jones kind of both the books and the films is the way she talks to herself is always like this instructive school Marmee self. It's like, oh, mustn't do this. And like, must have it arrested for sociological reasons pertaining to da da da da. She like writes to herself in her head, very like formally or something, like she's showing off to herself or something. But she's always like adopting kind of new self help theories, new kind of ideas, new like realms of spirituality. Like she's into feng shui, she's into Buddhism, whatever. But then when it comes to the very real thing of like, how do I comfort my children about like life after death when I just don't fucking know and like whatever kind of tiny thread of like, I don't know, Daddy's in the sky, I've managed to create for my kids. This man is just shitting on for.

[Alexandra Haddow]

No reason and not getting it. When she's in the classroom being like, no, of course the stars, they live on. And he's like, no, grandfood. Dead.

[Sally Phillips]

Dead.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Everyone's dead. Yeah, yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I mean, and I did, I did enjoy the gratuitous topless shot of Chiwetela Giful.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I mean, so important.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Who knew? I mean, that guy must be.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Was so important.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That is also a cinematic marvel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And I gotta say, like, if we were gonna. If we're ranking not to be this person, if we're ranking topless chants, I would take Chiwetel over Leo. I know Leo's the man of the.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Moment, but I was thinking Chiwetel must be. Must be 45 odd.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I mean, he's not dead. Must be 45. Like you haven't shagged a 45 year old.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And he's in tonight. Thank you. No, I'm just saying, like, he was rich.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

He was fucking rich.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, well, he's got all the time. Because he had no backstory to do. So he's just like.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No, he does have a backstory. He has a backstory I made up. Which is so. I firmly believe that because Richard Curtis wrote the first Bridget Jones, even though he didn't write this one. He is. And because they are like best mates from uni, Bridget Jones and Helen Fielding. Therefore, love actually is part of the Bridget Jones universe. Therefore we all know where I'm going. Therefore, Mr. Wallacher is Keira Knightley's husband from Love, actually, who sat in watching TV while his best Andrew Lincoln is out there with his cue cards. So what happened was. Thank you. I sent it to her backstage and she just totally glossed over and she's just. You were miles away, to be honest.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You've got me. You've won me round. So what happened? So Keira Knightley died.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Keira oh, yeah. Or Keira Knightley died or went off with Andrew Lee. Or he killed her. No, which is why. What explains his extremely sort of louche sort of relationship to death? He's like, yeah, it doesn't matter. It just matter. Matter becomes matter. Everything decomposes. So did Keira Knightley.

[Alexandra Haddow]

So he's a man on the run, teaching at a school in Hampstead.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, he's not run far. He's not run far. He's gone from whatever mews he lived.

[Alexandra Haddow]

In in Hampstead, trying to evade Andrew.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Lincoln, who was in Teachers.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Who was in Teachers. It all makes sense now.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I know. Yeah. Because, yeah, there has to be a kind of a. Richard. Like, if I just. I'm so sick of there being cinematic universes for things I don't care about. Do you know what I mean? It's like, don't care about Bond, don't care about fucking Marvel or whatever. I want, like, extended worlds of, like, romantic comedies where these people all interact with each other.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Well, they. I mean, a lot of Bridget's life intertwines with a lot of people. I mean, for somebody that's supposed to be like a little bit of a. You know. I don't want to say, like, I'm trying to think of the right word because, you know, it's supposed to be. You're sort of feeling a bit sorry for her. She gets a lot of dick.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She does something I think about a lot, actually. This interview I listened to with Richard Curtis, where he talked about how the original film. That it was like a totally. A movie that was found in the edit and that, like, they had reams and reams of footage, but they, like, didn't know how to put together. And it was actually Emma Freud, his wife, who suggested that at the top of the movie, they put Bridget Jones in her penguin pajamas singing All By Myself. Because basically they were like, she's a pretty girl with a cool job and everyone wants to shag her. Why should we care? Like, what's the struggle here?

[Sally Phillips]

And they were like.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

If we start with her lowest moment, where she's like, there. That was the moment when drinks like a fish and whatever, that kind of thing. And then she's depressed and it's like. That is like. I just think that's so cool.

[Alexandra Haddow]

What is the thing he says? He's like, she drinks like a fish.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Drinks like fish, smokes like a chimney and dresses like her mother.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Although I feel like these days you'd be like, yeah, let's fuck.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Although Lauren Bravo pointed out on Instagram recently, that picture that she wears to the. The outfit she wears to the turkey curry buffet. Kind of the red waistcoat thing. Waistcoat. Oh, yeah. Lauren, Bravo. Was like, this just looks like everything on the Damson Matter website. Now this is like completely come back.

[Alexandra Haddow]

But she is dressed like she's a waiter at a function in 1982. Do you know what I mean? Like, I mean, I would wear all of those items separately, don't get me wrong.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But it's something lovely on your bed.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. I love the fact that as well that the mums are thriving. Like Bridget's mum and Celia. I don't know her actual character's name, but Celia immigrants.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Una Arkenbury. Excuse me. One of us is a fan and one of us is just here to show off their legs.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes, you. And they're real. Yeah. That they're in like the old people's home that they're denying is an old people's home and they're pretending it's a hotel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That was so funny.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I was like, I hope we get Bridget when she's really old and just like growing old disgracefully, you know.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes. I love that. Like, I understand for the, like to make a movie, a movie, you need to have like these, like big moments, these set pieces and everything and they are great. But like the best thing about Bridget Jones is always these, like tiny lines. She's shagging Rockster for the first time and she's like, oh, baby, you make me so hard. And she goes, you make me so hard.

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[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes, Sally Fitz. Sally. I'm sorry. This is so fucking cool that you're here.

[Sally Phillips]

I think it's pretty fucking cool I'm here as well. Thank you for caring.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That's just like a start in the riser where the lights came back on.

[Sally Phillips]

And you were like, and she's here tonight.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No, but, like, I'm just so delighted you're here. Cause, like, I know that, like, we were talking to you backstage about this and you were like, I just can't believe anyone cares about me being in this. And I was like, no, you know, Shazzar is the friend that we all wish we had. Like, she is like, to me, it's the heart and soul of the whole thing, you know? Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, working title, do swearing well. And I'm very lucky she's landed the swearing role.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And we said, how many people just still say to you, come the fuck on, Bridget. Does it all just generally just, yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

That happens a bit. Come the fuck on. It's not a great line, though. I went to the premiere in Sydney and they had an led. Come the fuck on, Bridget. Yes, I had the premiere in Sydney. I had my most cousin Greg from Succession moment. The three A listers were touring the world, you know, and then I was just happened to be filming in Canberra. Someone said, woo to camera.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, we love Australians in Sally. That's a rule.

[Sally Phillips]

Like, Australians don't tend to do that for Canberra. Anyway, I turned up and I felt so like cousin Greg from Succession. So I was jumping up and down in front of this LED sign going.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Look, look, come the fuck on.

[Sally Phillips]

And making people take my photograph and looking very uncle.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, no, for me, Shazza was the character that made me want to move to London. I think she's the friend that at the same time she minimizes your problems in the best way whilst also being like, it's valid, but shut up, let's have fun. Do you know what I mean?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So true.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You need the mate immediately who makes it the worst thing in the world. And then you go out with your fun friend that says, shut up and have this.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

But also she's this character as well. It's like someone pointed out to me about. About this with Lord of the Rings recently that Legolas just basically tells people what's going on in case they've been to the loo and they've come back and they've missed something. And Shazzar is so that character, she's like, there's been all these fucking hints and stuff, but has he ever actually put his fucking tongue down your fucking throat? No. It's like, if you've been to the loo, that's what we miss. But I'm desperate to know, like, your journey with this character. Like, how did Shazza come into your life?

[Sally Phillips]

Well, I auditioned for it.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Well, wow, thanks for coming.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Cheers.

[Sally Phillips]

Ask you, you know, what made you decide to do the movie? I'm like, I'm just not that successful guy. I auditioned for it. I was really lucky to get it and was thrilled, you know, and I think auditioned for most of the characters, except for Daniel Cleaver. And I was really lucky to get. They were trying different combinations of friends. And I feel incredibly lucky to have got Shaz because I was up for Jude for a bit, depending on which gang they went with. And I just love our gang. I love James Palace. Makes me laugh more than any human on the planet.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I loved him.

[Sally Phillips]

Funny.

[Alexandra Haddow]

He's brilliant in this one, the hair.

[Sally Phillips]

Hilarious.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Hair is so important.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And the fact that his hit came back because it was on a TikTok video of a dog doing math.

[Sally Phillips]

Exactly, yeah. He's so, so funny.

[Alexandra Haddow]

So funny.

[Sally Phillips]

It's been so fun being friends with him because for a long time after the first one, he mainly played people who betrayed the human race. He played a really immoral character in Battlestar Galactica for five years, fell in love with some alien or half Android. I didn't watch it myself, but he portrayed the human race. And then he had a rash of sword and sandal movies where he was mainly in gold plastic skirts, being Greek. That was loads of fun, you know, just been really good fun being friends with James and Shirley, of course, is a genius that she's in all the Harry Potters and.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

So, yeah, friends in high places, crucially.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Always crying in Aloo in Harry Potter as well as.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Well, that's her thing.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's her thing. That's what she does best.

[Alexandra Haddow]

She's so brilliant.

[Sally Phillips]

Remember the first. So she's from Dundee and she said, will you. Everywhere we mention for like a relatively.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Small room, geographical cross section of the planet.

[Sally Phillips]

And she said, would you take me around? At the time we were shooting the first one, I just turned 30 on the day of the read through for the first one. I'm now about to turn 55.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So.

[Sally Phillips]

A long time ago.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

And I lived in Notting Hill and I was Single. And she said, would you take me round Notting Hill? So I did. I took her around and she's like, do people really live like this? Looking at all these sort of beautiful, very privileged people lunching in Cafe Med? And I looked around, I thought, gosh.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, I guess I do live like this.

[Sally Phillips]

I live like this.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So Bridget was like a newspaper column and then a book and obviously a film, like. So you were living in Notting Hill at the time. Did you feel like Bridget, did you have a relationship with the material before the film and did you feel like it reflected your life?

[Sally Phillips]

Honestly, I felt people would say I was Bridget. I'd be incredibly offended, really, But I was Bridget. In retrospect, I was Bridget, but I felt, you know, that you didn't want to be Bridget. So you don't want people pointing out you were single or struggled with your weight or smoked too much or fell for inappropriate men. That felt rude for them to point that out.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's such a strange thing, though, because, like, I feel like the idea of, like, a fictional newspaper column, that's about, like, somebody telling their inner truth and, like, how bad they're, you know, failing in various aspects of their life, it feels so strange now because, like, now people being really transparent about their lives is, like, the norm. It's like people going on social media talking about their lives, whereas then it felt like, I don't know, there was a much more private life. And even. Not even that long ago, you know.

[Sally Phillips]

No, exactly. We didn't have mobile phones. Can you imagine? No camera phones. Yeah. And. And it was a gang of friends. I mean, they weren't. They're not strictly translatable. So people. There's elements of. Lots of people. But, I mean, Daniel Cleaver was possibly John Lloyd from qi, which you can't imagine, really. Yeah. Well, I mean, could have been, maybe. And Reverend Richard Carley Johnson.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Can we get a picture up on the. Just so we know we're dealing with everyone, Reverend Richard.

[Sally Phillips]

Richard Coles.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No. Yes.

[Sally Phillips]

Well, him and elements of someone else, but, you know, mainly Reverend Richard Coles.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That man has a finger in every aspect of society. It's very cool, isn't he?

[Sally Phillips]

So he was. I mean, you know, you're much younger, you weren't born. But the Communards are really cool. And Richard Coles is. Well, is. But also really super. Was incredibly cool.

[Alexandra Haddow]

So Somerville in the communes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes, I know the communists.

[Sally Phillips]

And Richard Coles was on TV fighting for gay rights a lot. Yeah. He's just A really cool guy.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

He was.

[Sally Phillips]

You know Pride, the film about the miners? Yeah, and, yeah, he was one of those guys. He's genuinely one of those films.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God.

[Sally Phillips]

He's a really cool guy. So that is, you know, the basis for Tom. Gosh.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And what about the basis for Shazza? Because there's a few disputed influences.

[Sally Phillips]

It's not Saren Maguire is Trace Nicole.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Okay. Yeah. Because there's an interview where Sharon Maguire says it is her. So I hear there are people. There are Gen Xers dotted around London claiming to be various Bridget Jones characters.

[Sally Phillips]

Yes. Well, I mean, there was a gang of them, but I got told it wasn't her and that she was Jude.

[Alexandra Haddow]

And Sharon McGrime was the director of the first film. We should say.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes, she won first and third.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, she's. She's. I mean, for us, she really just brought the Jonesaverse. Shall I throw that out there?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The Jones Aversiver. Love it.

[Sally Phillips]

So she. I mean, it felt like she was Bridget as well on the first one, because she had spent most of her director's fee buying a. Like, if anyone's ever been on a film set, normally people just wear black. But she had gone and bought a whole load of stuff from DKNY to look cool. And some of it was sky cerulean blue. And she was just so adorable and fun, funny. She's giggled all the time, made us feel amazing. Made us feel like the friends were incredibly important and behaved all the time like she was desperately in love with both Hugh and Colin. They were matinee idols. So she was completely great.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I'm curious, though, because, like. Because when you see those friends on screen together, it feels so lived in, and you really do feel like the way you guys physically interact with each other and, like, finish your sentences and cut each other off feels so real. Did you. You must have filmed a lot that didn't even make the cut. Right.

[Sally Phillips]

Like, you've read this. Yeah, we did the first. The first screenplay, I feel like. I mean, it was 25 years ago, but I feel like it was four hours long, the first one, and we didn't even film most of it, so I was taking it incredibly seriously. So I had, you know, like, revision cards of all Shazza's scenes mapped up all over. Had these big windows in my flat and whatever. I. I don't know how many scenes I had. Say, I had 20 scenes, and I'd worked out an arc for Shaz, and then they kept cutting them. There was a scene at Hampstead Pond where we Were supposed to all be at Hampstead Ladies Pond with Tom the other side of the fence. And that got cut. You know, taking that down, that was. I think that was Shaz's big emotional moment. And so I was really gutted when that one. And then there was an awful, awful scene that we did shoot where we went to sing to Bridget. Because you forget, like, Working Title. Were working out their MO at that point. I mean, there was still sort of quite. Wasn't that many years after Four Weddings and a Funeral. And there was her flat in Borough Market. And this was before Borough Market was cool. It was before Borough Market. Before the market was really Borough Market was like some barrows at that point. So it was nothing like how it is now. And they. I think they built the Greek restaurant. I don't think that was actually there as a restaurant really.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Well, they trashed it. So hopefully.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. So we went to sing to her. So the three of us literally singing and dancing, looking up at bridge, looking out of her flat window. And it was heinous. We all knew that at the time. And I think Harvey Weinstein might have been there going, cut it. Just cut it, cut it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God. I didn't know he was involved with this.

[Sally Phillips]

He was involved. He was barking over. Yeah, over Sharon Maguire's shoulder. Oh, my God. And Renee.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Renee was getting everyone who wants to open that Pandora's box and also keep it closed at the same time. We're just like telling us everything who.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Was going out with Jim Carrey.

[Sally Phillips]

And so he came in and fixed it.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God. You were the last person on planet Earth to know this.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, I did not know that.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, they were going out. So he was there and we did. And the Greek restaurant thing, we shot that. I feel like we shot that for a whole week. And they kept saying they were going to get to us. So we'd all arrive, like 3pm all night shoots. And then we'd sit in James's trailer and James would smoke till none of us could see each other. And we'd run around looking for chocolates. And then about 5am they'd say, we're not going to get to you, you. And we'd go home.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Really?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, my God.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. I mean, there was a lot of that sort of, you know, we're not going to get to the Friends.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It felt like we're not going to get to the Friends.

[Sally Phillips]

We became really, really, really close. And whenever I spoke to Hugh or Colin, the other two would just die with fits of laughter. And I'd try and talk to them like a grown up.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, my God.

[Sally Phillips]

And I remember one time Colin saying, oh, you can come have lunch in my trailer if you like. And going into his trailer and just being so awkward sitting on, you know, those trailers. Like, it's a little like, you know, camping. It's Colin Firth there and then me, and he's trying to talk to me about London theatre. He doesn't know that I'm not a proper actress and I've never done any theatre.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Really. No way.

[Sally Phillips]

And I'm going, yes. I mean, the orsc Never been really interested anyway. Funny. Managed to choke my kebab down or whatever it was, and so practically tripped going down the stairs on the way out. And I was like, thank you for having me in your trailer. And then I could just hear this screaming laughter from the others hiding behind.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's Bridget.

[Sally Phillips]

That is Bridget, yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Did the others get an invite or was it sort of a date?

[Sally Phillips]

It was just me.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That was so a date.

[Sally Phillips]

It was just me. And I got to tell you another thing about Hugo, that's a long time ago. We were all children. He used to. I was also in Notting Hill, but was cut for being too funny. What were you one of those? Yeah, I was one of the setups. I was pudding. You'll notice pudding is missing. I'm on the Collector's edition dvd.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Bring back physical media. We need to see this.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Find that on ebay now.

[Sally Phillips]

So I was. So that was the first time I met Hugh. And I was walking down to set and I turned around and the third said, have you met Hugh? And I turned and there was Hugh Grant and I screamed. I accidentally screamed. To this day, I don't know why, but I think it was something to do with size, that he was smaller. So that was a really bad start to my relationship with him. And then I love how you said.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I was cut for being too funny. Hugh Grant's like, she screamed because I was so small. Get her out, get her out.

[Sally Phillips]

But he said on that one, he came up and he was like, Phillips, fuck, marry or kill from the crew. I want to know your choices. When I go back to my close up, he is Danny Cleveland.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

I think I read somewhere as well that during the filming of the second movie, you did something in Thailand that make him not spend speak to you for two years. Is that true? Is that myth?

[Sally Phillips]

Well, let's be honest, our paths don't cross much, so it's easy. Easy not to speak to me for two years. But yeah, I got Really? I got really drunk. I lost my flip flops in the sea.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And that was the line from him. He was like.

[Sally Phillips]

And I was indiscreet. And that was a line that meant that he felt I was no longer a safe person to spend time with. And that's completely understandable. And we've spoken about it now, and it's all fine.

[Alexandra Haddow]

What, because you. Because you told the story of it or because you did it?

[Sally Phillips]

No. I haven't told you what happened or what I said, have I? No.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, right.

[Sally Phillips]

Because I can be trusted now.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So something happened in Thailand. Nothing happened.

[Sally Phillips]

No, nothing. No, no.

[Alexandra Haddow]

You got pissed. Your flip flops.

[Sally Phillips]

I got really pissed. I lost. I was sick in the guitar bar toilet. The manager was this disgusted with me. I lost my flip flops in the sea. I embarrassed myself in front of Hugh Grant. I was pure Shaz.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We got stars. They're just like us. I think it's safe to say we're all fucking obsessed with you.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Real people, real stories, real lives.

[Sally Phillips]

And Hugh Grant, he is conscious. Isn't he great? I mean, he's so funny. You can tell. You can really spot all his lines. I mean, I don't know for sure that he wrote the line, my son is being brought up by an Italian count who wears his jumper as a shawl. But I'm prepared to bet my house that he did. I mean, he's a genius. He started in comedy. Do you know that?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Did he?

[Sally Phillips]

He started in comedy. He doesn't talk about this much. This wasn't what I brought up in Thailand. I don't think he'd make. He used to have a comedy troupe trio. They were called the Jockeys of Norfolk.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

The Jockeys of Norfolk.

[Alexandra Haddow]

See, you don't get this shit on Graham Norton. Carry on.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, I never saw them, but I would love. I mean, he's so funny. Yeah, he's brilliant. And, you know, Colin Firth's really funny as well. They're so funny. It's like they pretend not to be funny because we're viewed as slightly low rent. Cause we did comedy.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, 100%.

[Sally Phillips]

What do you do about that? It's not fair. It's hard to do comedy.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I think we shriek if we think a man is too small. See how it goes?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's definitely the calming thing. It's definitely not the shrieking.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I actually saw Jimmy Carr today, and he was very small.

[Sally Phillips]

You're quite tall. Well, I mean, Jimmy Carr is tall for me. That's not the thing that I notice most about Jimmy Carr.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Well, yes.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

We've all been noticing things about Jimmy Carr for some years now. We've got some questions from the audience. What was your favorite Bridget to film and why?

[Sally Phillips]

Favorite Bridget film. And why, as in two film. Oh, favorite one, two film.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Or two part question.

[Sally Phillips]

Favorite one, two film. Well, probably the first one. I mean, you know, that was so exciting. It was so much fun. And, yeah, it was just the first time meeting everybody, but it's always so nice to come back. And the weird thing is you're catching up on such a lot of life.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

So it's about one every 10 years or so at this point.

[Sally Phillips]

Maybe was a while ago, 25, not quite 10 years. But there was a big gap between two and three. So three meeting up was like a massive. Evan had got married and most of us had also got divorced. Or I was about to get divorced. Yeah. But at the end of. Between filming two and the premiere, I'd had my first child, Ollie, up there.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Ollie.

[Sally Phillips]

Hi, ollie. He's now 20.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, wow.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, and Renee got married and, you know, it's just big, big changes in people's lives every time you see them, you know, where they're living, who they're sort of identifying as, how they feel.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It must be so strange because obviously you don't share scenes with the entire cast, like. Or you might be in one very short scene with them or whatever. But because you are promoting these movies, it must feel like you're kind of a big college gang or something.

[Sally Phillips]

No. I mean.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

No.

[Sally Phillips]

No, not really. Well, because everybody lives in different countries and you tend to be doing your press sort of on your own, but the scenes. So, for example, Talitha's birthday party.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

We've got the. The dog and the swimming pool. And then we've got the disco. I mean, with that, dancing takes, I don't know, 20 seconds on screen, but we're dancing for four hours.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, God.

[Sally Phillips]

And with no music as well, isn't.

[Alexandra Haddow]

It in real life?

[Sally Phillips]

No, we had music.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, you did.

[Sally Phillips]

We had music.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I always think when you see scenes with. And they are sound afterwards and you just have to be dancing to nothing.

[Sally Phillips]

But they did let us have music.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, thank God.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. Because we really. We're really deep background.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yes. Very method.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. No, we're just irrelevant. Yeah. So you do. I mean, you have. And it's also. It's just quite weird to watch the thing because it's so condensed and you've, you know, for one scene that's two minutes You've done a whole day.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

And I mean, that scene you're talking about with where there's all the characters giving different advice.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

We spent that whole day. It was quite funny, kneeling under the kitchen table and they're like, kurt, Kurt, Kurt. Sally and James, we can see you spent the whole day trying to keep out of shape. Shot.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Why did you have to be able to. Could you not just not be in shot?

[Sally Phillips]

No, because. Only because they. They go. Part you had. The place has to be empty, and then next time they come around, you're there. We did it. They did it all in one shot. It wasn't a memory head. Everybody was there.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Cinema.

[Sally Phillips]

So we're moving around and. Well, it. Well, I didn't think it was the magic of movies. Magic of movies. I thought you could just add everyone in after. Yeah, no, we were all there, like, doing a little sort of dancing, like, running around behind the catch, like, cat, cat, cat. Sally, James, we can see you. And we kept. We had margaritas and we had to sort of fall to the floor, which meant we spilled the pretend margaritas. And it meant that for the rest of the week, when Renee was doing Bridget's scenes where she was walking around in her socks in her kitchen, she'd have wet feet from the spilled margaritas. We did it so gracelessly. And I think people always say that. I mean, these aren't all Richard Curtis movies, but in all the Richard Curtis movies, the friends have the best. Much better time than anybody else. Because you're sitting there, you're not having to pretend to die of cancer or anything or hate anyone. You just love everyone and you're having a really nice time all the time.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

Except when you're sort of, you know, someone's died or something. But that didn't happen to us in this. So, yeah, we just had a genuinely nice time and the job was to get on really well. And we got on really well. So, you know, it was great.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah. Well, you were saying, actually, that we would have been not disappointed, but we loved the fact that Shazza basically doesn't ever like. Doesn't ever have a partner or any. Like, she's always just, like.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

She's never spoken of. Really.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

Nobody that's ever kind of married, is she? Yeah, in number three, she's married and she's got kids. But I like the fact that he wasn't present. I mean, I'm sad that Julian Rhein Tutt wasn't available, but I don't think there was space for him and Jude's married as well, to Vile Richard. You might remember Vile Richard, the christening.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

You know, I think Vile Richard is possibly Anantucker, director of Hillary and Jackie, who's married to Sharon Maguire. And he's not actually vile, it's just, you know how it is when you're in your 20s and how you talk about your relationships.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Oh, I see.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. Yeah. He just couldn't commit for a while and so he became known as Fire Richard Richards. Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

But he's still around now.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, they're absolutely beautiful couple. Yeah. He comes and he does. You know, he will maybe do B camera for her when she's directing. She might go and direct B camera for him. It's a beautiful couple with lovely kids. Yeah. Very happy.

[Alexandra Haddow]

It is so funny how binary you are in your 20s, where, like, if someone does something slightly wrong, you're like, he is a bastard and I am no criminal. You are never going to speak to him again. And then you get to your 30s and you're like, ah, he's all right.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Which is like the journey that Daniel Cleaver goes on.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, exactly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

He cheated on you. Whatever. Yeah. He's a pal.

[Alexandra Haddow]

He's a laugh.

[Sally Phillips]

He can't help it. It's sad. I think it's the other thing with Daniel Cleaver. You look at it and he's with Jem and Eater and you go, it's sort of sad. And even he can see that it's sad. And he says, it's tragic. Isn't he, when he's in the hospital?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

He's like, it's kind of tragic and nobody actually cares about me.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

And it goes back to your line in this scene as well, which is that thing. I loved it so much, where you were like, can you hear yourself talk? Women of a certain age. You mean your age? You mean your friends, you mean your peers. And, like, I just thought it was so cool. Like, I really liked it. And do you feel like you were drawing from something, like a real rage that you have?

[Sally Phillips]

I mean, you know, feminist rage is just ready to go the whole time I'm there.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Shaza was so, like, ahead of her time with the feminist rage stuff, because I remember in the early movies it was like, oh, Shazza's a bit inappropriate and she sort of feels too strongly about things. But I feel like the time has sort of caught up with Shazzar a bit in that, like, it now feels very appropriate to name and shame these things. Like, that behavior feels really appropriate in that Scene.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, they seem. I mean, it's really interesting, isn't it, how just fossilized they look? You know, the friends with those views.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

I mean, whereas in the first one, I think we sort of bought that as well. I bought it as sort of normal and I definitely felt it, this idea of being. If you. That the couples sort of went off on their own when I was, you know, when we were that age.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

When we were 30.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

Couples socialized with couples and single people socialized with singles. But now that seems insane. You look at them, he goes, just crazy.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, yeah. Because I wouldn't think that at all now.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah. If I had pals who only really hung out with other couples, I would find that so fucking weird. Or I'd think they were fucking. Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

That's why I'm not allowed at the party unless I bring someone.

[Sally Phillips]

Did you like Bingo Carruthers, though? Because I loved that. That actor playing Bingo Carruthers. I just think he does it so well when they say they're going to set her up with Bingo. Yeah.

[Alexandra Haddow]

But is Binko actually in it or is it just a name?

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

He's the guy by the pool.

[Sally Phillips]

He's the guy by the pool and he does the best disappointed look when Leo gets out of the pool.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes.

[Sally Phillips]

He's like. And he's been so cute and optimistic that, you know, beep, beep, I've got a chance with Bridget. They think I'm in. They think I'm in. And I think he's a widower, I think.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, yes. That was definitely.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. Setting him up.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Bing, coke, Ruthers. The names are always so, like, perfect in this. Like Cosmo and Wony as well.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. Dolly Wells. The brilliant Dolly Wells.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yes. It was amazing to see her back again because, like, when I first watched that, I wouldn't have known who Dolly Wells is. But then I've seen Dal and M in the same.

[Sally Phillips]

There's an amazing thing in the third one where it's the wedding or christening. Must have been some. Can't remember. But there were a load of people who were in the first one, and the first one hadn't really done anything. And yet by the third one, there was a dance floor with a load of extras, all of whom had a bafta. Everyone, you know, Jessica Hines and, you know, all these people, Dolly. And that's so cool.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

What was it like? Sort of like welcoming Leo Woodall and Chiwetela Giuffour into the fold? A bit like, what was I Began to basically tell us whether or not Leo Woodall is nice or not, so we can keep fantasizing her.

[Alexandra Haddow]

He's lovely.

[Sally Phillips]

He's so lovely. He's so nice and very funny. And danced like an ass, which I loved, laughing his head off. And I mean, I, you know, I've got three boys, but I felt quite protective of him. I mean, even like at the Sydney premiere, Aussies, you're animals like Leo wanna root. Like, you know, you suddenly see it. I mean, I've never been. I've never been the sort of super sexy one, but I have friends who have been girlfriends who have been. And it's quite oppressive, that desire coming at you and you kind of go, well, is this a tipping point? I don't believe he's loving this. I think this is weird and othering and strange and I think he deals with it with such grace. He's just, you know, tolerates it tolerates us going, you're hot. Really? Well, he's really nice, really funny.

[Alexandra Haddow]

It must be like, the first few times that happens, you're like, oh, that's nice. And then when people are sort of.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, it's frightening.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, it's frightening. It's like Ollie and I did. Has anyone seen something special with Mr. Tumble? Only you. Well, it's a kids show where there's a sort of clown type character who does stuff with kids with special needs. And we were on it when Ollie was quite small. And it turned out Mr. Tumble was completely terrified of special needs parents. Because he turns up and everyone's like, Ah, Mr. Tumble, just come and open my face. Open my gym.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Come to my playgroup.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah. And I just feel like when the need comes at you too much, it's a bit scary.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

And that's never happened to me and that's fine. But I think he deals. He just deals with it so brilliantly.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

You must get a bit of that, though. I mean, me and Alex backstage were trying hard not to paw you because, like, you know, not to put too fine a pointer. Like, you know, you've been in so many iconic things like, like Smack the Pony and this and Veep and everything. There's so many amazing things that people are just like, oh, gosh, you're so fucking cool kind of thing. You must get a lot of attention from the likes of us.

[Sally Phillips]

Yeah, it's very nice to be here, but I think I've managed it quite well. So, obviously Julia is the star of Veep and Renee is the star of Bridget. And, you know, I sometimes say, yeah, I was in Miranda is the one who wasn't Miranda or the. Or the other one or the mother or the bloke. And I was in Bridget as the one who wasn't Bridget. And so who didn't get to shag Colin Firth or Hugh Grant or the old riddle. And so consequently saw for 25 years.

[Alexandra Haddow]

But did go on a date with Colin Firth in his trailer.

[Sally Phillips]

I did. I did.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

That's lore now.

[Sally Phillips]

I did have an awkward lunch bullshitting about the rsc.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Bullshitting about the rsc.

[Sally Phillips]

He's such a nice man. He is such a nice man, Colin Firth.

[Alexandra Haddow]

I'm so glad because he seems it. He has an energy that makes you feel safe.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

And also I disagree with you strongly about the idea that Colin and Renee. Colin and Bridget wouldn't sustain.

[Alexandra Haddow]

We didn't say they wouldn't sustain. We just thought it's more fun if they. If he's dead.

[Sally Phillips]

But you like it. It's more fun if he's dead.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

It's more fun these days.

[Sally Phillips]

I don't know, because I was. I was there in number three when they were going upstairs at that disc. Remember when they get back into bed with each other.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sally Phillips]

And it was really hot.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Should we go for one of the questions on the thing? Because we asked for questions and I've barely acknowledged them.

[Alexandra Haddow]

We got.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Oh, this is nice. Any advice for the next generation of 30 somethings or those about to be trying to figure things out?

[Sally Phillips]

Ooh, no, no. I have got everything wrong.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Wrong.

[Sally Phillips]

Everything it's possible to get wrong, I have got wrong. Don't listen to me or to any comedienne. You know the blue suit scene in the dinner party in the first one they didn't get my close up at the time, so I had to go back two months later and do my bits all on my own in a little shed like a box. And they just set just my place. And they were like, okay, this fork is Colin Furr. This fork is Bridget. And I had to do all of that. Act the whole scene out just on my own in a magic of. Magic of cinema.

[Caroline O'Donoghue]

Right, well, that's Hallie Phillips, everyone.

[Alexandra Haddow]

Yeah, I know.

[Maybelline New York]

Ever wonder what your lashes are destined for? The cards have spoken. Maybelline New York Mascara does it all. Whether you crave fully fan lashes with Lash. Sensational big bold volume from the Colossal A dramatic lift with falsies Lash lift or natural looking volume from Great Lash. Your perfect lash future awaits. Manifest your best mascara today. Shop Maybelline New York and discover your Lash Destiny Shop now at Walmart.