Chiwetel Ejiofor Didn’t Really Meet Renée Zellweger Until ‘Bridget Jones’ Wrapped

Although he was a fan of Bridget Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor never thought he’d play a role in the franchise. “Suddenly, something pops up and then somebody says to you, ‘Do you want to look at the new Bridget Jones film?’” he says. “And you think, Well, I’d never thought about that. I love Bridget Jones, but I’ve never thought about it in that context.”

And just like that, Ejiofor was cast as Mr. Wallaker, a pragmatic science teacher, in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, the fourth installment in the beloved romantic comedy franchise starring Renee Zellweger as the titular heroine, which hit Peacock on February 14.

In the film, the 12 Years a Slave star begins at odds with the recently widowed Bridget Jones, blowing his whistle with perhaps a bit too much force when she’s dropping off her children, Billy (Casper Knopf) and Mabel (Mila Jankovic), at school in the morning. “I love the fact that he was buttoned up with his whistle and this almost antagonistic character, initially,” Ejiofor says. “But then he reveals something, over the course of the film, that’s increasingly warm.”

Below, Ejiofor chats with Vanity Fair about age-gap relationships; writing, directing, and starring in work on Rob Peace (2024); and getting to know the American Zellweger when the press tour began.

Vanity Fair: What was your relationship to Bridget Jones going into Mad About the Boy?

Chiwetel Ejiofor: I thought Renée was so brilliant in it. I’d been familiar with her at that point really only from Jerry Maguire. And I remember how brilliant she was in that film. To see her in this kind of magical transformation into this English character was just really impressive.

As a British actor, what was it like watching Renée, who’s originally from Texas, transform and play an English person?

It was interesting because she didn’t really transform. From the moment that I met her she was in her Bridget Jones accent. She always came across as a British person. It’s only been when we’ve been doing press now that I have heard her actually as herself, as a Texan. Initially, it was sort of surprising, a bit odd. It’s like meeting somebody for the first time that you’ve actually been spending a lot of time with. It’s a bit discombobulating, but I suppose why it’s so convincing when she’s actually on camera.

So, even off camera when the cameras weren’t rolling she was doing a British accent?

Everything, all the time. And even on the phone calling home or whatever, if you happened to be near her, she would still be Bridget. It’s amazing. That’s why it feels like magic, what she does, because you definitely feel like you’re in the presence of Bridget Jones all the time.

There are definitely some Mr. Darcy elements to your character, Mr. Wallaker. How concerned were you in terms of bringing a fresh element to this franchise?

Obviously there were echoes from different films. But Mr. Wallaker felt like he had his own journey. Yes, he is a bit uptight, but also he’s an educator. And as a teacher it gives him this other dimension, especially with Bridget’s children, specifically with Casper. It felt very grounded to me.

Daniel Cleaver and obviously Mark Darcy, are iconic characters. They are absolutely iconic and brilliant performances by Hugh [Grant] and Colin [Firth] over the years. You’d be crazy to even try and fill those shoes in any way. They’re irreplaceable. So it felt great to me that I felt drawn to Mr. Wallaker on his own terms.

In the film, Bridget has a romance with a boy toy named Roxster, played by Leo Woodall, and Mr. Wallacher is presented as a more-age appropriate option. In reality, you are about a decade younger than Renée Zellweger, so Mr. Wallaker and Bridget Jones are still a bit of a May-December match.

[laughs] I think that they’re very much more contemporaries. People can get a little literal with actual people’s ages. That’s one of the things that’s really interesting about it. There are other qualities to Mr. Wallaker, I think, that are engaging to Bridget, but sort of nothing to do with the top line statistics of him.

One of those is in the way that he relates to Billy. The way that he relates to his understanding of the world. The fact that they compliment different aspects of each other, I think, is really interesting. It’s something that I think we could all reflect on in terms of how romance works at a certain point in our lives.

You’ve done romantic comedies, like Love Actually, and also heavier films like 12 Years a Slave. Do you try to find a balance between the two?

I’ve definitely never felt like I needed to have an oeuvre or something. Being an actor can be so random at times because you don’t know quite what’s on your bingo card. I suppose you just have to be open to it. Then you judge. When I read the script, I was like, “Well, let me see how I feel about it.” And I just loved it. I thought it was really brilliantly written, actually. It was really a thread-the-needle moment, where you want to speak to the 25 years or so of Bridget Jones, but also you want to do something different or something that has an evolution—something that speaks to the times we’re in now. I thought it managed to do that so well.

I think that if one continues to look at things like that and be open to what happens, it’s the easiest thing. Otherwise, I suppose, being an actor is such an uncontrollable thing. Most of the big decisions happen in your absence. Most of the time, so you can’t really control it.

You recently wrote, directed and starred in the film Rob Peace (2024), based on the book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs. What was it like wearing multiple hats working on that film?

It was an incredible experience. When I first read the book, I was so moved by it. It felt like it really encapsulated a lot of things that I had been thinking about but I hadn’t quite contextualized—those intersections of housing, and education, and race, and the criminal justice system, and just how all of these things create these systems of reality.

Not being born and raised in America, I related to it hugely because there are echoes of those exact systems in so many different places, including the UK. It feels like it is a story of a generation, in a way. It’s a story of policy that in some ways began in the States—I think that’s maybe fair to say—but in the ’80s and ’90s a lot of places had the same systemic realities.

For somebody like Rob to be caught up in these structural realities, it felt heartbreaking, and fascinating, and truthful. I was really engaged with it as a story, and as a life.

It’s been a little over 10 years since 12 Years a Slave, and your best actor Oscar nomination. Do you ever revisit that film?

I don’t tend to revisit the film, or any film that I’ve made. But the conversation around 12 Years a Slave—and also my continuing close relationship with Steve McQueen—means that I consider and think about it a lot. I do think about that film—not only its impact, but things about its storytelling, which I think is still very remarkable and so fascinating. The way that it was put together. Obviously, the work of Steve on the film is something that I think about a lot, but also Joe Walker as an editor. There’s so many things that are very special about that film, and the conversation that it sparked. It’s very special what that experience was and has been. So, yeah, maybe I should watch it again, actually.