Hard to believe it's been 15 years since "Renée Zellweger.

Since the film adaptation of Helen Fielding's novel hit these shores on April 13, 2001, the awkward but lovable "singleton" heroine has been a worldwide favorite, spawning a 2004 sequel and a long-awaited third installment, "Bridget Jones's Baby," finally due for delivery this fall. To celebrate the film's 15th anniversary this week, here are some behind-the-scenes facts you need to know.
1. Helen Fielding's worldwide bestseller started out as a series of columns in Britain's Independent newspaper that loosely fictionalized the romantic misadventures of Fielding and her thirtysomething pals. Fielding acknowledged that she lifted her storyline from "Pride and Prejudice." "Jane Austen's plots are very good and have been market researched over a number of centuries so I decided simply to steal one of them," Fielding joked. "I thought she wouldn't mind, and anyway, she's dead."

2. Director Sally Phillips) was based on Maguire.

3. It took producers two years to find the perfect Bridget Jones. Among those considered were Shakespeare in Love."

5. Zellweger's ultimate test came when she went undercover as Bridget Cavendish, taking on a Bridget Jones-like job as a publicist trainee at Picador, the London publishing firm where Fielding had worked while she wrote her novel. For two weeks, the actress learned the publishing business, practiced her accent, and successfully ed as a local; no one recognized her as the Hollywood leading lady of "Raging Bull" and pack on weight to play the curvy Bridget. She famously gained 17 pounds on a diet of bagels, burgers, buttered biscuits, croissants, cheesecake, pizza, peanut butter, and protein shakes with ice cream.

7. For Mark Darcy, the filmmakers had no other choice but Colin Firth, who had played Mr. Darcy in the celebrated 1995 BBC version of "Pride and Prejudice," making women swoon throughout the English-speaking world. Among those who had developed a crush on Firth's TV Darcy was Fielding, who name-checked the actor in her book. She was so intent on casting him in the film that the producers also hired Andrew Davies, who had scripted the Austen mini-series, to co-write the "Bridget Jones" screenplay with Fielding and British romantic comedy master Notting Hill." He was thrilled to play someone with more of an edge, or, as he put it, "a character that was nearer to the real me."

9. The film cost a reported $26 million to produce. It earned back $72 million in North America and a total of $282 million worldwide.

10. Zellweger was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, a rarity for a comic performance. She lost to Cold Mountain," a trophy many considered a make-up prize for her "Bridget Jones" snub.