Colin Firth stunned by Mark Darcy's death in Bridget Jones

BLOCKBUSTER
October 9, 2013

Colin Firth was stunned when he was told Mark Darcy was being killed off in 'Bridget Jones 3'.

The Oscar-winning actor played the gentlemanly love interest of bumbling heroine Bridget (Renee Zellweger) in the first two film adaptations of Helen Fielding's bestselling novels and was fully expecting to reprise the popular role in the next film.

However, Fielding was forced to break the news to Firth over the phone that his alter-ego doesn't feature in her long-awaited third book, 'Mad About The Boy', and instead leaves Bridget a widower.

She told TIME magazine: ''I did want to tell Colin in person but we were trying to have lunch, and I couldn't really tell him why I was trying to meet him, and he was in a different place. So I ended up telling him he died on the phone.

''I had to ask him if he had someone with him and if he was sitting down. It was like someone actually had died. We had to process it. And I was almost saying, 'I'm so sorry for your loss'.''

The next romantic comedy will see Bridget, now 51, struggling to raises their children Mabel and Billy alone, but Fielding appeared to hint at the possibility of a cameo role for Firth in the form of a ghost.

The author added: ''His presence is very much there in the book and in the child. As I told him, his memory will live on and he will rise from the dead rather like Jesus.''

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Colin Firth: Darcy is dead - Uproar by Bridget Jones fans after delicious Mark is killed off

MIRROR
By James Robertson, Lucy Buckland
September 30, 2013

Twitter exploded with reaction from "Bridge" fans across the world - with some vowing not to buy Fielding's third book

The news that Mark Darcy is dead and Bridget Jones is now a widowed "workless" mother of two has left the nation reeling. Extracts of writer Helen Fielding's third Bridge novel, Mad About The Boy, were published in the Sunday Times Magazine, and grieving fans took to Twitter to vent their frustration over the death of Turkey buffet fan and human rights activist Mark.

 Fifteen years after the last novel in the saga, it turns out unlucky-in-love Bridget married Darcy had two children - Mabel and Billy. Heralding the arrival of "chick lit", Bridget Jones's Diary started life as as a newspaper column in 1995. Two best-selling novels, with their corresponding Hollywood blockbuster film adaptations featuring Renee Zellweger as Bridget and Colin Firth as Darcy, followed.

 Portrayed as a stereotypical 1990s London thirty-something worried about her weight, smoking and alcohol intake, Bridget struck a chord with women of her generation. The original book was eventually voted by readers as one of the 10 novels that defined the 20th century, side by side with Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell or Anne Frank's own diary.

The modern-day heroine's story - loosely based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - was centred around love interests Darcy and her cad boss Daniel Cleaver. After hearing from her last in 1999 with Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, readers will now find Bridget as a 51-year-old widow obsessed with Twitter, wrinkles and weight.

Fielding, who has always denied that the books are autobiographical, is herself a 55-year-old single mother-of-two who ended her relationship with television executive Kevin Curran in 2009. Bridget's new adventures as a fifty-something cougar sees her meet new 30-year-old toy boy boyfriend, Roxter, on Twitter, five years after Darcy's death. But those who want to know what happened to the love of her life will have to wait until about Mad About The Boy is published on October 10, as his death will appear in a flashback deep into the book and not be revealed in advance.



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