In the opening scene of Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, the movie features an utterly unexpected nod to the Harry Potter adaptations. The Bridget Jones movies always boasted impressive casts. The classic 2001 original offered cameos to Salman Rushdie and Honor Blackman alongside its A-list leads Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant, and even had room for supporting roles for Celia Imrie and Jim Broadbent. Not to be outdone, 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby saw Patrick Dempsey join the franchise along with Emma Thompson and a cameo role for Ed Sheeran.
Although Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy changes the story of the source novel at times, it doesn’t skimp on star power. Both Grant and Firth return once again, and Leo Woodall, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leila Farzad, and Isla Fisher all join the series in supporting roles. However, viewers who have been around since 2001’s Bridget Jones’ Diary will be glad to see that this starry cast list doesn’t push out some old friends. Bridget’s closest confidantes, Shazzer, Tom, and Jude all return, and Jude’s actor gets a hilarious nod to another famous role of hers in an early scene.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy References Shirley Henderson’s Harry Potter Role
Bridget Says Jude Can Be Found “Crying in the Bathroom”
Before Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’s age gap romance begins, an early scene sees Bridget reunited with the friend group that has been with her since the original movie. Bridget’s narration introduces Shazzer, Tom, and Jude after Shazzer saves her from a maudlin party on the anniversary of Darcy’s death four years earlier. When introducing Jude, Bridget says she can usually be found “Crying in the bathroom.” This couldn’t be more fitting, since Jude’s actor Shirley Henderson famously played the role of Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies.
Crying in the bathrooms of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is exactly how Henderson’s character is introduced in her first scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
There, Henderson’s character could be found crying in the bathrooms of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and that is exactly how she is introduced in her first scene from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Of course, the joke about Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’s returning character isn’t just intended as a meta-reference for Harry Potter fans. Viewers who remember the first movie in the series well will know that it is also a payoff from 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy’s Jude Joke Doubles As An Original Movie Callback
Shirley Henderson’s Character Was Introduced In The Same Situation
One year before her role in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Henderson’s Jude was first seen crying in the bathroom in Bridget Jones’s Diary, too. The Scottish actor has played a diverse range of roles in the 23 years since, appearing in everything from Doctor Who to The Mandalorian. However, two of her most famous roles both saw her characters crying in the bathroom when they were first introduced, and both happened to arrive in cinemas within a year of each other.
Henderson isn’t the only Bridget Jones’s Diary alumnus to appear in the Harry Potter franchise. Bridget’s mother is played by Gemma Jones, who played Madam Pomfry in the series, while her father is played by Jim Broadbent, who took on the role of Professor Slughorn. However, neither of their Harry Potter characters had as much in common with their Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy roles as Henderson’s Jude and Moaning Myrtle.
