Toni Collette Turned Down The Lead Role In A Classic Rom-Com

Academy Award-nominee Toni Collette is well known for her acclaimed performances in the likes of About a Boy, Little Miss Sunshine, and The Sixth Sense. Although, fans of the actor might not be aware that Collette once turned down the lead role in a major romantic comedy.

During a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, the actor was asked during a viewer phone-in segment whether she really did say no to Bridget Jones’s Diary — and if she regretted doing so.

“I don’t regret anything,” Collette promptly responded. “I think there are no coincidences. Anything that’s meant for you in life is meant to happen. I have no regrets. Life happens as it’s meant to. But that is true, yeah.”

Meanwhile, in a previous interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Collette shared the reason why she turned down the 2001 rom-com, revealing that she was too “busy” working on the Broadway production The Wild Party at the time. “I wasn’t available,” she recalled. “But sometimes I think about it and I think, I don’t know, that character’s so similar to Muriel [from Muriel’s Wedding]. It might’ve been too close. And I try not to repeat myself.”

Collette wasn’t the only actor in the running to play Bridget Jones, as the likes of Kate Winslet, Rachel Weisz, Sally Philips, and Helena Bonham Carter were reportedly considered to play the famed character.

The role of Bridget Jones ultimately went to Renée Zellweger, who played the lead in 2001’s Bridget Jones's Diary, which follows the story of a thirty-something Londoner who begins writing a diary in an attempt to change her life.

Also starring Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, the film went on to become one of the biggest British romantic comedies of all time, earning more than $280 million at the worldwide box office and spawning not one, but two sequels: 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and 2016’s Bridget Jones’s Baby.