By Jeannie Williams, USA TODAY 

Bridget Jones's busy dating life: She calls herself a "wanton sex goddess" while in bed with her boss. She lip-syncs to All By Myself and dons a Playboy-type bunny costume with fishnets. She undergoes the humiliation of her date discovering she's wearing a heavy-duty girdle. 

Renee Zellweger does it all in Bridget Jones's Diary, plumped up by some 20 pounds. But at Monday's New York premiere, Zellweger was her petite self again, in chic Marc Jacobs suit, boots and ponytail, and still thrilled with the success of her golden Oscars gown. 

"I have to say I looooove my yellow dress!" she said. She giggled about that girdle scene with Hugh Grant, who is finally playing a cad. The whole  experience of the movie "was so extraordinary, every day something new,  something silly, something outrageous in terms of opportunities to be creative," she said. 

But Zellweger, whose last big romance was Jim Carrey, has no dating tips of  her own to offer: "Oh, God, no, you don't want to ask me anything, honey! 

Not a thing. I'll just keep my nose out of that department for a long, long time!" Accompanying her at the premiere were her parents. 

Grant was in his new shortish, spike-ish haircut, which he hated at first: "There was a moment when I thought I looked like an East European female  tennis star. But I now think in fact I look cool and hip and now and  London." 

His publisher character lies and cheats, but Grant believes women "don't know what they want (in men, good and bad). They want a bit of both, that's been my experience." 

He admits improvising dialogue in the girdle scene ("big pants," he callsthem). "It all sprung up because I did find them curiously sexually attractive." 

Grant does date: "I get out a bit. But I don't have any tips. I find I've lost my knack over the past 13 years (with ex-love Elizabeth Hurley). I just lie, flirt, bat your eyelids." Who is he dating? "None of your beeswax!" he says. 

Bridget Jones's Diary, from the novel by Helen Fielding, is quite a steal from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. And Colin Firth as Mark Darcy, Bridget's other man, is very similar to the brooding Mr. Darcy he played in that Austen TV miniseries. The handsome Firth regrettably was absent
Monday; his Italian wife, Livia, gave birth last Thursday to a son, Luca, and he was at her side in Rome. (He has another son with Meg Tilly, his Valmont co-star.) 

Zellweger's casting was criticized because she's not English. But her accent is excellent, and Fielding said it's important that Bridget "has a real sweetness to her character. ... Renee has such a sweetness and  warmth that comes across beautifully."

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