European Film Awards: Colin Firth -Best European Actor
Evening Standard British Film Awards: Hugh Grant – Peter Sellers Award for Comedy
Evening Standard British Film Awards: Richard Curtis, Andrew Davies, Helen Fielding – Best Screenplay
London Critics Circle Film Awards: Helen Fielding, Andrew Davies, Richard Curtis – British Screenwriter of the Year

Mark: Mother, I do not need a blind date. Particularly not with some verbally incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, and dresses like her mother.

Bridget: Thank you, Daniel, that is very good to know. But if staying here means working within 10 yards of you, frankly, I’d rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein’s arse.

Bridget: You once said you liked me just as I am and I just wanted to say likewise. I mean there are stupid things your mum buys you, tonight’s another… classic. You’re haughty, and you always say the wrong thing in every situation and I seriously believe that you should rethink the length of your sideburns. But, you’re a nice man and I like you. If you wanted to pop by some time that might be nice… more than nice.
Mark: Right, crikey.

Bridget: It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.

Daniel: Come on, Bridget, we belong together – you, me, poor little skirt. If I can’t make it with you, then I can’t make it with anyone.
Bridget: That’s not a good enough offer for me.

Shazzer:: Introduce people with thoughtful details. Such as: “Sheila, this is Daniel. Daniel, this is Sheila. Sheila enjoys horse-riding and comes from New Zealand. Daniel enjoys publishing and comes…”
Bridget: …all over your face?

Bridget: Resolution #1: Ugh – will obviously lose 20 lbs. #2: Always put last night’s panties in the laundry basket. Equally important: will find nice sensible boyfriend and stop forming romantic attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, sexaholics, commitment-phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits, or perverts. Will especially stop fantasizing about a particular person who embodies all these things.

Richard: Why do you wanna work on television?
Bridget: I’ve got to leave my job because I shagged my boss.
Richard: Fair enough. Start on Monday.

Tom: Whose side are we on?
Shazzer:: Mark’s, of course. He never dumped Bridget for some naked American.
Bridget: But he did shag Daniel’s fiancée and left him broken-hearted.
Tom: You’re right, it’s a tough one to call.

Bridget: I owe you an apology about Daniel. He said you ran off with his fiancée and left him brokenhearted.
Mark: No, it was the other way around. My wife. My heart.

Jude: Just as you are? Not thinner? Not cleverer? Not with slightly bigger breasts or slightly smaller nose?
Bridget: No.
Shazzer:: Well, fuck me.
Tom: This is someone you hate, right?
Bridget: Yes, yes, I hate him.

Tom: Well done Bridge, four hours of careful cooking and a feast of blue soup, omelette and marmalade. I think that deserves a toast, don’t you? To Bridget, who cannot cook, but who we love — just as she is.
Tom, Shazzer, Jude: To Bridget, just as she is.

Mark: All right , outside.
Daniel: I’m sorry? Outside? Should I bring my dueling pistols or my sword?

Mark: I don’t think you’re an idiot at all. I mean, there are elements of the ridiculous about you. Your mother’s pretty interesting. And you really are an appallingly bad public speaker. And, um, you tend to let whatever’s in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration of the consequences. I realize when I met you at the Turkey Curry Buffet that I was unforgivably rude and wearing a reindeer jumper that my mother had given me the day before. But the thing is, um… what I’m trying to say, very inarticulately, is that, um, in fact… perhaps despite appearances, I like you. Very much.
Bridget: Apart from the smoking and the drinking and the vulgar mother… and the verbal diarrhea…
Mark: No, I like you very much. Just as you are.

Bridget: Wait a minute… nice boys don’t kiss like that.
Mark: Oh, yes, they fucking do.

• To prepare for the role, Renée Zellweger gained 25 pounds, then worked at a British publishing company for a month. Using an alias and a posh accent, she was apparently not recognized. She also kept a framed picture of her then-boyfriend Jim Carrey on her desk. Her coworkers found the photo odd, but never mentioned it, fearing it would embarrass her.
• Sally Phillips auditioned for the title character, but was turned down. However, she impressed the producers, who offered her the part of Shazza.
• The casting of Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones sparked considerable controversy, with many fans of the books outraged that an American actress would play the very British Bridget. However, this was quickly silenced after Zellweger’s performance received nearly unanimous praise and an Academy Award nomination.
• Renée Zellweger worked on her accent with Barbara Berkery, who had helped Gwyneth Paltrow with Shakespeare in Love (1998).
• In 2008, the Bridget Jones character was accused of the decline in sales of Chardonnay. Oz Clarke, one of Britain’s best-selling wine writers, said the character’s association with the wine had hurt its reputation; “Until Bridget Jones, chardonnay was really sexy. After, people said, ‘God, not in my bar’.”
• Bridget’s flat is above The Globe Tavern pub, located at 8 Bedale Street in London.
• The fight scene between Hugh Grant and Colin Firth wasn’t choreographed. It was improvised between the actors.
• When Lara, the American girlfriend, is discovered naked in Daniel’s bathroom, she is holding a large book with the Pemberley Press name and logo printed in gold. The logo bears a striking resemblance to Pemberley, the grand estate of Mr. Darcy from the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice.
• Bridget Jones’s Diary is a loose retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.