Life imitates art for Leo Woodall with the Bridget Jones actor’s personal life slightly mirroring his off-camera relationship.
The One Day star, 28, is set to pulses racing in the latest film adaption of Helen Fielding’s famous books, starring as Renée Zellweger‘s eponymous character’s much younger love interest.
Leo has some experience with age-gap romances thanks to currently dating a woman – a former co-star no less – a few years older than him.
In the latest instalment of Bridget’s story – Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy – we meet Bridget, now in middle age, alone once again. Widowed four years prior when her beloved Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) was killed on a humanitarian mission in the Sudan, she’s now a single mother to 10-year-old Billy and six-year-old Mabel.
Her nearest and dearest are insisting she gets back on the dating wagon and begins to forge a new life, and while initially hesitant, a chance encounter with a gorgeous twenty-something gardener in her local park brings Bridget back into the whirligig of dating. Meet Roxster, played by Leo.
While Roxster and Bridget’s age-gap spans decades, Leo is only a few years younger than his real-life partner, Meghann Fahy. The Bold Type actress, 34, and Leo, 28, first met in 2022 while filming the sophomoric season of The White Lotus in Sicily. It’s not known exactly when the couple began dating but they went Instagram Official in February 2024 as Leo turned heads thanks to his performance as Dexter in One Day.
The pair rarely discuss their romance but Meghann made a rare comment in August as she discussed her boyfriend’s performance in the Netflix series. “I thought it was incredibly well done from top to bottom, and obviously the performances were my favourite part,” Meghann said of One Day during her chat with Vanity Fair.
Earlier this month, while promoting Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Leo revealed why he keeps his relationship out of the spotlight. “We’re very good at keeping it as private as we can,” he told Elle. “To me, that’s the only way. You see public relationships all the time slapped all over social media and I can’t imagine that’s any fun. [Your relationship] should be a safe space, so I think letting people into it is completely counter-productive.”
In the latest Bridget Jones movie, Bridget’s relationship with Leo’s character Roxster, like many plot points throughout the entire film franchise, subverts societal norms: middle-aged man dating younger woman is a well-explored trope, less so is the older woman with a dashing young boyfriend.
“Well, I think at the end of the day, they fancy each other the second they see each other and things go from there,” Leo recently mused when discussing the movie’s main focal romance. “They build a real connection. And I think what’s sweet is that it’s not ignored, but it doesn’t lean too heavily into: ‘There is this age gap’.
“There’s jokes made about it, and there’s some serious comments made about it. But at the end of the day, I think people maybe just aren’t used to seeing it flipped on screen.”
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