PADDINGTON IN PERU brings Paddington’s story back to Peru as he returns to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who
resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.
Nick L’Barrow spoke to the film’s director, Dougal Wilson, who makes his feature film directorial debut with this third film in the series! Dougal discusses his excitement and nervousness in coming into the franchise, the freedom of playing in a larger than life setting, and creating the most action-packed Paddington film yet!

Nick: Dougal, it’s such a pleasure to chat with you! Over the Christmas break, the one movie that was on all of my families lips was Paddington in Peru! So many people were excited for this movie!
Dougal Wilson: Oh, well that’s lovely! I hope it lives up to their expectations!
Nick: I’m sure it will, because it is a delightful, fun film! And you’ve come into this franchise as a director at the third Paddington film. I’m curious to know what the experience was like in balancing your own voice, basically making a ‘Dougal Wilson’ film, but also honouring the aspects of these films and the character of Paddington himself that we as audiences love?
Dougal Wilson: Oh, that was everything for me. That was the whole challenge. When I was asked to direct the film, I was very flattered, but also very intimidated. I was under no illusion that this would be something easy to do. So, my first prerogative was to just not mess it up and continue in the vein of the first two films.
I’ve seen the first two films countless times, and just absorbed the grammar of Paul King’s filmmaking, which I thought was brilliant. But inevitably, you do add your own voice to it, but I wasn’t trying to shoehorn it in.
I came from short form, you know? Music videos, commercials, and short films. And one of the reasons that this appealed to me is that it’s such a crafted style of filmmaking. Every detail is important, which is something I very much like to focus on in my work. In the action scenes or set pieces, I very much enjoyed bringing in tricks and gags that I might do in my own stuff. And I love the way these films mix mediums, like Mrs. Brown’s painting coming alive in animation form, or the musical sequence with Olivia Coleman.
Nick: I’m so glad you mentioned the action set pieces, because this is without a doubt the most action-packed Paddington movie yet. What is the process of designing these large set-pieces around a character who is so physically small within the world he inhabits?
Dougal Wilson: Well, they were very, very, very well planned and storyboarded with the director of animation, Pablo Di Gioia, who worked on the other films. He really is part of the soul of Paddington, as much as Ben Whishaw is too, because he animates Paddington and makes him move in such an emotionally expressive way.
But for example, there’s the big chase in act three where Paddington is being pursued by Hunter, who is played by Antonion Banderas, around the Citadel, which is full of interesting architecture that we shot a lot of it at Machu Picchu but also built it on the back lot of Heath Street Studios and knitted it all together with CG.
But in those scenes, who is playing Paddington? We have a little person, Lauren Bertrand, who’s played Paddington physically in all the films, usually in the more conversational or dramatic scenarios. But when we get to the action scenes, it’s a little bit trickier, because you do need someone who is quite acrobatic, so we also have a performer called Javier Marzan, who is a physical comedian and clown from Spain. He often plays Paddington in those more physical scenes.
Nick: I have to ask about working with Antonio Banderas, and all of the “Hunter’s” that he plays…
Dougal Wilson: [laughs] He was a fantastic person to collaborate with. He absolutely embraced the whole concept of dressing up as all of these different people from the past. He loved it. He loves dressing up, he loves characters, and he loves doing silly voices.
We worked with a fantastic costume designer, Charlotte Walter, who proposed various different outfits for Antonio. She went to a theatre he owns in Malaga, where he puts on musical theatre, and did the fittings there, which was much to his pleasure! And he was so incredibly patient with the various costumes and layers we had to do. The one that did push his patience a bit was the conquistador, of which he described was like ‘having a beaver on his face’!
But as soon as he puts those costumes on, it’s like method acting. He would get straight into those characters. He’s a great guy to work with. He’s got time for everybody and would talk to everybody on set. I even had to hold him back from doing his own stunts because he’s so full of energy and ideas. He’s wonderful.
Nick: His character – or characters, I should say – really brings to life the incredibly fun and charming absurdity within the comedy. It’s so larger than life when people like Hayley Atwell parachute through their office window! How much fun is it as a filmmaker when you get to play in a world where anything is truly possible?
Dougal Wilson: It is great, but at the same time it obviously has to make sense within the story. It’s nice having a heightened reality. I mean, there’s a talking bear in the film and no one acknowledges that it’s weird at all! But I was also following the style of the first two films, you know? Paddington washes all the windows in London by soaping up his fur and gets lowered down on the gantry that window cleaners use.
It’s lovely to know you can push the boundaries of what is acceptable in the real world, and it’s nice to not have to acknowledge that it’s strange at all and play it completely straight!
But it all comes through the writing. It’s not a case of anything goes, but as you’re following the story, you find things that a throughlines for the characters to have their arcs, and you can do that in the craziest ways possible.
Thanks to Dougal for his time, and you StudioCanal for organising the interview! Paddington in Peru is in cinemas now.
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