Paddington was not part of my childhood. I was a Muppet kid, and Fozzie was my comfort bear of choice.
Instead, Paddington came to me as an adult. In 2015, an exceedingly polite, marmalade-slurping fellow in a floppy felt hat and blue duffel coat arrived in theaters and offered an uplifting story about tolerance and pluck. Three years later, the euphorically reviewed “Paddington 2” delivered a reassuring — calming — message about the ugly chaos of modern life: Keep believing in goodness. It’s still out there.
So when I recently had the opportunity to talk to Paddington himself, I couldn’t help but turn the interview into a therapy session.
It wasn’t actually Paddington, of course. I was on a video call with the British actor Ben Whishaw. He voices Paddington in the PG-rated franchise, the third installment in which, “Paddington in Peru,” arrives in theaters in the United States and Canada on Friday. Our chat was supposed to be about an imaginary world where optimistic bears carry umbrellas and tuck sandwiches under their hats. On the day we spoke, however, my mind was consumed by the real world — the Los Angeles fires, the turmoil of a changing presidential administration, my mother needing heart surgery.
Paddington! Say it’s all going to be OK!
“I understand,” Whishaw said gently, sounding identical to Paddington in every syllable. “You feel like nothing is stable anymore.”
My eyes started to well up. “But here is the truth,” he continued. “Treating people well, looking at the world kindly, that still exists.”
In the first movie, Paddington turns up in London as an illegal immigrant from “darkest Peru” and encounters prejudice. A maniacal taxidermist played by Nicole Kidman wants to stuff him. “Let one bear in and soon the street will be full of them,” she sneers. Paddington carries on, helped by the kindhearted Brown family.
In the second film, Paddington faces a new challenge: Can he hold on to his decency when sent into a wider world? After encountering a series of obstacles, including wrongful imprisonment, we learn that (spoiler alert) he can. This is one resilient bear, even in the face of a villainous Hugh Grant, who plays a narcissistic, has-been actor.
“Paddington in Peru” has the same emotional arc. This time, however, the fish-out-of-water theme is reversed. Paddington is back on home turf, and the Browns — traveling with him — are caught in an unfamiliar world. “Paddington in Peru” also obscures the villain until late in the action. Is it Olivia Colman’s joyful nun? She seems to have a sinister secret. Or is it Antonio Banderas’s brooding steamboat captain?
The third movie, which cost StudioCanal an estimated $90 million to make, has already taken in $104 million overseas. (It was released in the United Kingdom in November.) By the end of its global run, “Paddington in Peru” should have ticket sales exceeding $200 million, according to box office analysts. (“Paddington 2” collected $290 million.)
In other words, the franchise is relatively healthy. No obvious reason to expect the Paddington films to go away anytime soon.
But should fans (meaning: me) worry that Paddington could lose his voice? Already, one important member of the original cast, Sally Hawkins, has decamped. After playing the sensitive Mrs. Brown in the first two films, Hawkins decided not to return for “Paddington in Peru.”
“We did everything we could to try and persuade her, but she felt she’d already brought everything she could to it,” Rosie Alison, who produced the trilogy, told me. Hawkins was replaced by Emily Mortimer, whose credits include “Mary Poppins Returns.” (It takes some getting used to.) Paul King, who directed the first two movies, also departed and was replaced by Dougal Wilson, a first-time filmmaker.
Whishaw, 44, could be next. Franchises do not seem especially important to him, although he also played the tech genius Q in three James Bond blockbusters. Based on his résumé, he clearly likes new challenges, especially in gritty TV dramas (“Black Doves,” “This is Going to Hurt”) and art films (“Women Talking,” the coming “Peter Hujar’s Day”).
“I don’t know if there will be any more Paddingtons,” he said. “I’m always of the opinion that it’s best to leave people wanting more. I don’t think it should go on and on.”
This was almost more reality than I could take. I gave Whishaw a hard stare.
“We’ll see,” he offered, returning to therapist mode.
The Paddington films are a hybrid of animation and live action, a style that can be tricky to pull off, especially tonally. Whishaw’s soft, soothing, somewhat otherworldly voice is the secret ingredient. But he was not the first choice for the role. Colin Firth, an Oscar winner for “The King’s Speech,” left the first Paddington film after production had already started because his voice (deep, booming) turned out to be an awkward fit.
“I have to work quite hard at it,” Whishaw said. “He should be funny. But he also needs to be tender. He can’t be too knowing, not ever. If it becomes too much wink wink then he just dies as a character. Sometimes he must be a little melancholy, other times quizzical. He always has to be very optimistic.”
“You do every single line 100 times or something,” Whishaw added, noting that each recording session lasts four hours. “Four hours of growling. It sounds easy, but it’s quite difficult.” While recording, Whishaw wears a helmet fitted with a camera that captures his facial expressions; Pablo Grillo, an animation whiz, uses the imagery to create Paddington.
Alison, the producer, said she hoped Paddington could help soothe the nerves of those who need it.
“He’s a very composed Englishman who takes everything in his stride, and nothing really fazes him,” she said. “Somehow, everything turns out all right for him, and he sees the best of all possibilities in the world. There’s a lovely light touch about him — that inner child is very much still there. He’s courteous and respectful. He has manners.”
Wait a second: Was she talking about Paddington or Whishaw?
“One and the same,” she said.
