After taking a break from both acting and directing, respectively, Renée Zellweger and Sharon Maguire are back together. Their relationship began in 2001 with “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” a movie that was a big box office success and brought Zellweger an Oscar nomination. Its sequel, 2004’s “The Edge of Reason” (which Maguire didn’t direct) was far less popular. It then took twelve years of rewrites of a script, ultimately penned by author Helen Fielding, Emma Thompson, and Dan Mazer, for the third installment of the franchise to come into fruition.

The new film is called “Bridget Jones’s Baby” and the protagonist is now 43, at the top of her career, still unlucky in love, and unexpectedly pregnant.

Zellweger and Maguire are currently on tour promoting the comedy, and Women and Hollywood spoke to the two women about the struggles of being a woman in Hollywood and their collaboration that has spanned 15 years.

“Bridget Jones’s Baby” opens September 16.

W&H: Since the first film was released 15 years ago, as a female and as a working woman in Hollywood, how has the business changed in terms of getting the type of movie made that you wanted?

SM: I kind of took time out after I made the movie really because I needed — I felt I needed to go away and breathe. I kind of got hooked on that. I thought, “Oh, okay. I don’t need to be on the runaway train of work and define myself just like that. I can live a life.”

Circumstances took us off to California, and it was like just a grand big vacation for four years. So, I haven’t had much access to it to understand. All I know is that I don’t understand why there aren’t more women directors in Hollywood.

I really don’t understand because I can’t believe the whole movie industry is sexist. I think we need to make a curriculum for schools. There needs to be more storytelling. If we all learned storytelling from the roots up, I think there would just be more women filmmakers.

I think Hollywood goes with what’s worked before — and if a man’s directed it before and that’s worked, and it’s made money, we’ll go back with a man because people put a lot of money into these things. But, I know loads of women directors in TV everywhere. So, I don’t know why they haven’t translated it enough to Hollywood yet. I really don’t understand it.

RZ: I do think it’s changing, because women are creators, and the things that are being put out there are becoming recognizably financially viable. And when there’s a financial incentive to do something, people come running and sexism takes a backseat to capitalizing on somebody’s work.

And I don’t think Amy Poehler is saying, “Just tell them whatever he wants to pay me is fine. You know, that’s just fine.” I don’t think everybody’s going, “Yeah, not that girl, that Tina Fey. Not Tina Fey. We need a man for this.” I don’t see that happening.

W&H: How closely did you work together on this film?

RZ: It’s always collaborative, and that’s what makes this experience so much fun: We all know this character in a different way. We’re interpretive artists, and we take what’s on the page and shape it around and give it dimension. The accidents and the things you don’t expect [are often what make] movie magic happen.

W&H: What did you bring to the table in this version of Bridget?

SM: I didn’t come to motherhood until I was in my forties and experienced — at the time, there was no dad around, or not for sure anyway. So, [there was a] kind of exhilaration combined with the humiliation of being single, forty, and pregnant. I was able to bring some of experience to the table.

W&H: Was there a scene in the film that you particularly related to?

SM: Sitting alone at home thinking, “I’m in my forties, none of my fantasies have come true. Great. Great birthday.” I think the loneliness theme is important for both of us, a fear of loneliness. Whatever feminism has brought us, I think there’s [still a] valid … fear of loneliness that we all have. It comes from a film I love called “The Apartment” by Billy Wilder. It’s very much about the loneliness of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, and, although it’s a comedy, it’s the saddest comedy I’ve ever seen.

RZ: Well, I guess more than a scene maybe a theme [that I relate to] in the film is that Bridget’s friends have kind of moved on: They have families, and they have partners. Their lives have changed.

You evolve when you become a mom. You become a bigger version of yourself. You become a more powerful version of yourself, a fully realized version of yourself. I’m watching all of my friends and my family members evolve in this way, and I’m a bit of a late bloomer, so it’s interesting to kind of be chronologically in that place, but not experience that same transformation at the same time as your friends, and the people closest to you.

W&H: How would you say that Bridget has inspired you in your own life?

RZ: So many people come up to me and say, “No, you don’t understand, Renée. I am Bridget Jones,” and they’ll share their Bridget Jones story. If we were all privy to one another’s inner dialogue, we would recognize that we are so very much alike. We all feel the same pressures to measure up, and we all share the same fears that we won’t. We all put the same pressures on ourselves. We’re all self-deprecating

SM: I always Bridget’s kind of like all of us. She has a sort of inner self — healthy self-loathing combined with a sort of misguided self-belief. Renée’s much more kind-hearted, and brings that to the character. She brings sort of seven layers of warmth to [Bridget’s personality] on top [those other traits,] and I think that really helps make [Bridget who she is.]

W&H: Knowing where she is now and where she started, what would you say to the Bridget Jones that is 30 versus the Bridget Jones that is 43?

SM: For me, coming to the script, 15 years later, the whole experience, I think it’s imbued with a sense of the fantasies you have for your life and how they don’t work out. And I would say to her that your fantasies for your life probably won’t work out.

RZ: Bridget is recognizing that the social paradigm for happiness does not apply across the board and that it’s okay to have and determine for yourself what happiness means — even if it isn’t within the conventional ideal.

I would maybe suggest not to waste so much time trying to measure up — to recognize that the minute we get out of our own way, we stop making ourselves small by trying to conform to something that doesn’t necessarily apply to our lives. That’s when we thrive.