This is an occasion for genuinely tiny knickers: Bridget Jones is coming back to the big screen.

Renee Zellweger will reprise her role as the charmingly befuddled British publishing exec in the third installment of the franchise, Variety.com reports.

The script will likely be based on author Helen Fielding’s columns for British paper The Independent about Bridget trying to have a baby and her continuing search for love.

The first two movies, “Bridget Jones’s Diary” in 2001, and “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason” in 2004, were based on Fielding’s best-selling books of the same titles.

The film will be produced by Working Title and is expected to go into production at the end of next year. There is no writer or director as of yet.

And now that the films’ heroine is into her 40s, it remains to be seen whether Zellweger will have to put on even more weight than usual to literally flesh out the character.

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Bradley Cooper really is the man of the moment, and now he’s got a new lady on his arm: Renee Zellweger.

Although “The Hangover” star has been busy claiming he’s just friends with Jennifer Aniston - with whom he was seen having dinner late last month - he can hardly say the same about Zellweger after the two were caught on a cozy date Tuesday night.

We spotted the pair - who co-star in the upcoming thriller “Case 39″ - looking very into each other at upper East Side eatery Antonucci. The pair giggled and chatted in a corner booth of the restaurant and seemed to have amazing chemistry - Cooper even reached over to touch the “Bridget Jones” star’s arm and gazed at her adoringly. The duo lingered over dinner and drank serious amounts of white wine, then sipped from the same cup of tea after the meal was over.

Zellweger herself confirmed she was having a blast with her new man. When a restaurant patron told the actress she had a cute date, she giggled, “He’s sweet, really sweet!”

And hilarious, apparently. Throughout the night Zellweger, squealed, “You are so funny!”

The date seemed to remain great even when the paparazzi made an appearance around 11:30. Cooper and Zellweger playfully slid down in their booth to avoid being seen, while giggling and whispering intimately to avoid being overheard and plotting how to avoid being caught by the paps when they made their exit.

Finally, without saying goodbye, Zellweger asked, “Do you mind if I go first? I’ll see you in a little bit,” and paid the tab (what a lady!) before leaving the boite around midnight while Cooper lingered.

We think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Although the actor has been linked to beauties like “Nip/Tuck” star Rhona Mitra and actress Lake Bell, he and Zellweger seem like a match made in heaven. The real question: How long will the two last? Both Zellweger and Cooper split from their exes - country singer Kenny Chesney and actress Jennifer Esposito, respectively - after just four months each.

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Renee Zellweger showed a great sense of humour yesterday as she spoofed her role in Bridget Jones by donning a fat suit during a bizarre awards ceremony .

The actress smiled and laughed while parading about in the bulky flesh-coloured outfit as she was honored as the Hasty Pudding Theatricals woman of the year in Harvard, Massachusetts.

The 39-year-old famously put on two stone to play the much loved character in the 2001 film based on Helen Fielding’s novel.

She looked to be having the time of her life as she danced with a number of drag queens who grabbed at the suit - which had a black Bridget-style bra sewn to its front.

Miss Zellweger then rode around Harvard Square in the back of a silver convertible to the delight of fans.

She waved to spectators who braved frigid temperatures and signed a few autographs, all the while capturing the event on her mobile phone camera.

Hasty Pudding is the nation’s oldest undergraduate drama troupe. By tradition, many of its male members wear women’s clothes for the parade — one came dressed in a gold, sparkly dress.

Later she turned the teasing back on her hosts, calling the pudding pot she received ‘the nicest doorstop I’ve ever had.’

‘I have always had great faith that no matter the state of the union, that America’s future was sound so long as Harvard continued to deliver us her brightest and best,’ she said.

‘And after what I have experienced and witnessed today, I can tell you that I’m going to really have to re-think all that.’

Miss Zellweger won a supporting-actress Oscar for the 2003 film Cold Mountain.

James Franco will be honored as the Hasty Pudding Man of the Year next week.

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RENÉE Zellweger doesn’t have a problem dining alone, but doesn’t mind the company of a cute guy, either. An East Hamptons spy saw the star at The Palm Saturday night “nursing a glass of red wine, eating salmon and sautéed mushrooms and typing on her iPhone for hours.” The source said Zellweger “was reading a script when a tall handsome guy in his 30s walked up to her and started chatting. It brought a huge smile to her face.”

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Oh, & George Clooney’s in them too …

Renee Zellweger out with George Clooney.

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Renée Kathleen Zellweger (born April 25, 1969) is an Academy Award-, BAFTA-, SAG Award-, and Golden Globe-winning American actress, singer, dancer, and performer that has established herself as one of the highest-paid female Hollywood actors in recent years. She is also known as the former wife of country musician Kenny Chesney. The couple were briefly married in 2005 before an annulment seven months later.

Zellweger dated Josh Pate, whom she began seeing in November 1996 after the filming of Deceiver. She also was rumored to have dated George Clooney. Her first high-profile romance was with actor/comedian Jim Carrey. The relationship ended in a broken engagement in December 2000. Zellweger notably poked fun at the prior relationship when she ended her opening monologue on Saturday Night Live by reading an entry from her own “diary”, marked “Dear Diary, I can’t believe I am dating Jim Carrey.”For two years, Zellweger dated The White Stripes singer Jack White, who is six years her junior. The pair became involved while filming Cold Mountain. They broke up two years later, after schedule demands kept them apart. Friends said the split was amicable.

On May 9, 2005, Zellweger married singer Kenny Chesney in a ceremony at the island of St. John. They had met in January at a tsunami relief benefit concert. Zellweger missed out on the engagement ring since the wedding was planned over a short span of time. On September 15, 2005, after only four months of marriage, they announced their plans for an annulment. Zellweger cited fraud as the reason in the related papers. After media scrutiny of her use of the word “fraud”, she qualified the use of the term, stating it was “simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny’s character. I would personally be very grateful for your support in refraining from drawing derogatory, hurtful, sensationalized or untrue conclusions. We hope to experience this transition as privately as possible.” The annulment was finalized in late December 2005.Since the annulment, she has been linked to various personalities, including actor Luke Perry of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame.

After selling her home in the Hollywood Hills, Zellweger bought a home in Bel Air. In January 2007, she admitted that she gets scared at home alone due to security problems and fans who send or leave mail at her homes. She said that she considered buying a gun for reasons of personal security.
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Actress Renée Zellweger, 39, has revealed that she has  no plans to have kids.

“Motherhood has never been an ambition,” she tells London’s The Times. “I never have expectations like, ‘When I’m 19 I’m going to do this, and by the time I’ve hit 25, I’m going to do that’.

“I just take things as they come, each day at a time, and if things happen, all well and good,” she added. “I just want to be independent and be able to take care of myself. Anything else is just gravy.”

Zellweger refused to talk about her brief marriage to country singer Kenny Chesney, but she wasn’t secretive when it came to her reported romance with her Leatherheads director and co-star George Clooney.

“I did see a recent magazine article in which George said that he and I had been girlfriend-boyfriend ‘a little bit’,” Zellweger says. “But what the hell is that? ‘A little bit?’ I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not!”

Zellweger insists his comments were misconstrued.

“I think he was asked if he liked me and said, ‘A little bit,’” she says. “Don’t you connect me with that man! I’d deny it until I die,” she jokes.

Adds Zellweger, “Actually, who the hell am I kidding? Scrap all that; do connect me with George Clooney. Connect me with him as much as possible!”

Wow, girlfriend talks a lot huh!

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Renée Zellweger and George Clooney have been pals for a long time – long enough, it seems, that even wise-cracking about their personal lives comes easy.

In a new interview with the U.K. edition of Marie Claire, the pair – who costar together in the new movie Leatherheads – have a good laugh about their views on marriage.

“We’ve both been very successful at it,” Clooney joked. (He’s divorced, and Zellweger annulled her marriage to Kenny Chesney after four months).

The pair have been friends for ten years and they’ve been romantically linked in the past, prompting Zellweger, 38, to joke: “We’re married! Didn’t you hear? The baby’s coming in July. Why do you think I’m wearing this baggy jacket?”

In all seriousness, though, she thinks Clooney, 46, is a “good man,” saying: “It’s just his natural disposition … he does the right thing, it’s almost a disease with him. I know it’s shocking in this day and age that there’s no scandal. He’s just nice and he works very, very hard.”

‘One of My Dearest Friends’
Clooney, twice named People’s Sexiest Man Alive, was similarly effusive about Zellweger, describing her as “one of my dearest friends.” As the writer and director of the 1920s football comedy Leatherheads, Clooney says he felt under pressure as well.

“When Renee commits, it greenlights a movie. So, there’s a responsibility, as the director of this film, not to screw up my friend,” Clooney said. Zellweger chimed in: “And I reminded him daily. ‘Don’t screw this up for me, man.’”

Zellweger, meanwhile, has nothing but praise for Clooney, her director and costar, although she admitted feeling the pressure when she realized her part in Leatherheads was written for her by Clooney.

“I was terrified,” she says. “I didn’t want to be the one who sucked in his movie. You’d much rather disappoint someone you’re not going to see again.”

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