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American Morning
Showbiz Today Reports: 'Bridget Jones' Diary': Renee Zellweger Discusses Role, Box Office Analyst Marty Grove Notes Movie's Success
Aired April 16, 2001 - 11:44 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get it down to Laurin Sydney, who is standing by in New York.
Good morning -- Laurin.
LAURIN SYDNEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, everybody.
Unfortunately, we do start with some sad news first. The music community is mourning one of the founding fathers of punk rock this morning. Joey Ramone, leader of the quintessential garage band the Ramones, died Sunday, at age 49, after a short battle with lymphoma. The Ramones' crude three-chord anthems, with titles like "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Rock 'n' Roll High School," paved the way for the British punk invasion in the late seventies.
The Easter Bunny brought some more golden eggs to those "Spy Kids." The family film topped the box office for the third week in a row, bringing in an estimated $13 million.
Right behind it was Morgan Freeman's "Along Came a Spider."
Coming in third at the box office was "Bridget Jones' Diary," with over $10 million. The movie, from the best seller, showed women power outgunning girl power, since the much-hyped "Josie and the Pussycats" made a poor showing at number seven. There's something about Bridget that rings true with single women on both sides of the pond.
Our Sherri Sylvester sat down with the Texas-born actress Renee Zellweger to talk about how difficult it was to portray the British role model.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHERRI SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): I have to ask you about the weight. What did you eat to gain weight?
RENEE ZELLWEGER, ACTOR: It was pretty boring, actually, really regimented and mathematical. I went and saw a doctor, and he said here's what you're going to have to add . And every now and then, I would throw in an extra Kit Kat bar, because it was for the good of the film.
SYLVESTER: A little Guinness, a little dark beer that's loaded with calories.
ZELLWEGER: Exactly, lots of that, lots of that.
SYLVESTER: How close was the camera to your...
ZELLWEGER: Butt-cam, we called it. They took a Chinese rickshaw where the cameraman would sit on it -- seriously -- and I would run in front of this rickshaw that they would pull alongside, and they would do a close-up of my bum, constantly. Oh, it's butt-cam night -- OK, here we go -- truly.
SYLVESTER: That's so anti-actress, I don't know, anti-woman -- everything to say shoot my cellulite, man, come and get it, boys, here it is.
ZELLWEGER: Not for me: I was so excited. I was so excited about it. The worse it was, the better. We went to the first wardrobe fitting, and I was elated. I was elated: Look at that -- can we make it a little tighter so it scrunches up a little bit right there? It was great.
What was your most Bridget Jones day?
ZELLWEGER: Ongoing Bridget experiences. I practiced with the cigarette, and the only thing I didn't do off camera that I did on camera was light the cigarettes. I walked around with them, I had them in my purse, I got comfortable with them, but I didn't light them. So come the day when I'm trying to do these scenes with Hugh, he's in the middle of this really important thing -- he's doing this brilliant job -- and I'm going to spoil it because I can't keep my eyes open for the cigarette smoke. It was hysterical.
SYLVESTER: Tell me about going undercover, what you learned going to the publishing house and being around the other women.
ZELLWEGER: That was an incredible experience. I made so many friends in that office, and it was a real good look at, you know, the daily life of working women in England -- amazing, amazing -- never mind the friendships on top of it, which were a real gift.
SYLVESTER: Have you ever kept a journal?
ZELLWEGER: Yes.
SYLVESTER: Did you ever do one as a kid?
ZELLWEGER: Yes, I do. I'm very jealous of people who can actually keep them and stay true to them for years and years and years. I keep a different kind of book: I keep "things that I'm grateful for" book.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: I'm so glad my camera is in front.
And now with his own diary that he is keeping, it's box office analyst Marty Grove.
Marty, "Bridget" did well on both sides of the Atlantic, didn't it?
MARTY GROVE, BOX OFFICE ANALYST: Laurin, she did, and if she were writing a little diary entry, it would be, "Dear Diary, made a big splash on both sides on the Atlantic." The biggest opening ever for a British film in the United Kingdom, it did about $10.4 million. That's around $25,000 plus per theater. That's via Universal Pictures, which has international rights on it.
Miramax is equally happy domestically, where the picture almost did $11 million. It was very successful, at about $7,000 a theater here in the United States, on about 1,600 screens. It goes wider next week in the United States, to about 2,000 theaters.
It's really a success story because it only cost around $25 million to make this movie. It will gross at least $150 million worldwide, so Universal and Miramax, which cofinanced it, along with Studio Canal, from France, and Working Title Films, in England, which produced it, all have great cause to be happy.
And Laurin, by the way, the last time that Miramax and Universal teamed up on a picture, it was "Shakespeare in Love," and everybody came out very, very pleased.
SYLVESTER: It says a lot about woman power at the box office, Marty.
Do you think that the marketing of "Joe Dirt" helped it come in fourth?
GROVE: Yes, I love the campaign that Colombia put together for this picture, just having a little fun with it. In fact, over the weekend, they said to me, we're number four, and we're proud of it. The film, Laurin, appealed not to New York and Los Angeles, but to everybody in between, and that's really a good indication that it can play and dig in there.
By the way, it only cost around $16 million to make. So once again, it's a success story for Colombia, as it's not expensive.
SYLVESTER: All these big numbers are reminding me that we have to take a little break, Marty, but thank you so much. We're going to see you next week, and we hope to see you right after this.
GROVE: My pleasure.
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