Renée Zellweger has admitted the Bridget Jones series would run and run if she had her way.

The two-time Oscar winner is currently gearing up for the fourth instalment in the rom-com franchise, billed in its trailer as “one last chapter” in the story of Bridget.

However, speaking to BBC News at the film’s premiere on Thursday, Renée shared that she has her “fingers crossed” that a fifth instalment could still happen.

“Let me live in denial for a little longer,” she quipped, sharing that it still “hasn’t sunk in yet” that she won’t play Bridget again.

Renée landed her first Oscar nomination for her performance as the lead in 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, in which she shared the screen with Colin Firth and Hugh Grant, with the trio reuniting in the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason in 2004.

After more than a decade, Renée made her return as Bridget in the third film, Bridget Jones’s Baby, which was the first in the series not to be based on one of Helen Fielding’s books (although a book with a similar plot to the film was released later down the line).

The fourth instalment reintroduces Bridget at a very different stage in her life, raising two children as a single mum following the death of her beloved husband Mark Darcy.

Leo Woodall and Chiwetel Ejiofor play two very different new love interests for the titular heroine, with Hugh also returning as Daniel Cleaver, having previously made the decision not to return for the last movie.

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy hits cinemas on Friday 14 February.