“Paddington in Peru” is here.
The third installment of the franchise based on the character Paddington Bear and created by Michael Bond is in theaters now. This time, the lovable bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw) and his family, led by Hugh Bonneville and Emily Mortimer (taking over for Sally Hawkins) travel deep into the jungles of Peru. That’s where they fend off duplicitous nuns and a riverboat captain with secrets (played deliciously by Antonio Banderas).
TheWrap spoke to Bonneville and Mortimer about what it was like embarking on the latest adventure in the beloved franchise, whether Mortimer was a fan of the series before signing up and if Bonneville thought, while making the first film, that he’d still be here all these years later.
When we asked about Mortimer joining the franchise, Bonneville joked, “Well, there are certain things you can and can’t do in front of the bear. I did have to talk Emily through, you know, he doesn’t like being looked at in the eye before lunchtime. When he’s had his second jar, things can get a bit wonky.”
In actuality, Bonneville said, “It was a seamless transition and we just got on with it.”
For Mortimer, it was just as frictionless. “It was very easy. It was very strangely easy. It was OK from the beginning, just because these are a very nice group of people and very welcoming and sweet,” Mortimer said. “It just felt right. And I think it helped that it had been a number of years since you guys had done the last one. The kids actually were kind of different people.”
“I think, yeah, they both had beards,” Bonneville joked. The actor said that when they started the films, Samuel Joslin, who plays Jonathan, was 11. And when they were working on “Paddington in Peru,” “he took me to a pub.”
“We’ve been doing this for quite a long time, some of us, so it’s a very family atmosphere,” Bonneville said.
Mortimer said it was nice because on the previous films they were children, so they were always being taken off by chaperones and parents and tutors. Child actors are somewhat cordoned off from the adult performers because of this. “But this time, they were really fully part of it, and I think that it felt very different for them. In a way, that was really fun. We all became really, really good friends very quickly,” Mortimer said.
When asked if she had been a fan of the franchise before joining “Paddington in Peru,” Mortimer scoffed. “You can’t really be English and not love those movies and not have Paddington be part of your DNA,” Mortimer said. “That’s what we all grew up being read to and reading when we were little. It feels very much part of the national identity.” For Queen and country (and Paddington) then.
Three movies in, and Bonneville said that he’s still thrilled to be a part of the franchise. “It’s a delightful little world to inhabit from time to time and I think each film has embraced the spirit of Paddington so gorgeously,” Bonneville said. Paul King directed the first two films, and now Dougal Wilson takes the reins.
Still, Bonneville never thought that the first film would spawn a full-on franchise.
“I can remember thinking, This looks right. Love the script. And I thought Paul was touched with genius. But when you’re making a project, you don’t know what it’s going to turn out like, particularly since the main character didn’t turn up most of the time,” Bonneville remembered. The cast had seen renderings of what Paddington would look like, “but they were just two-dimensional images.”
Bonneville said that when the first photos of Paddington were released, they instantly became memes, “because he looked rather sinister, because he was literally inanimate.” People were putting him into horror film posters – “he was behind the shower curtain in ‘Psycho’ and under a street lamp for ‘The Exorcist.’ He was everywhere.”
At the time, there were even concerns that it was going to be “a rubbishy parody or a disservice to Michael Bond’s books.” You could tell that the worry got to Bonneville, too — until King showed him something.
“When Paul King showed me some footage of the animated bear sticking his head down the loo, I remember being absolutely blown away by the texture and the quality and the aliveness of it all and the three-dimensionality of it all. And I thought actually, We’re on much richer footing than I ever realized,” Bonneville said. The animation, in particular, has gotten better and better, “and you can read so much emotion into what the bear is feeling and thinking.
“I’m incredibly proud that here we are on number three, which I think is visually the richest of the lot,” Bonneville said.
You can see “Paddington in Peru” only in theaters right now.
