'The Home Office issued Paddington with his own passport': Behind the scenes on Paddington in Peru

Staring at me with his warm brown eyes, his chocolatey fur is begging to be stroked. "You can touch him if you like," I'm told, snapping me out of my daydream that Paddington is a real bear that exists in the real world.

The startlingly hyper-realistic "stuffie head" – essentially Paddington’s head on a stick – cost £30,000 to make and is crafted from humanely sourced beaver fur, explains Rob Silva, co-producer of the upcoming third Paddington film, Paddington in Peru. It’s used to provide an eye-line for the actors in the film and also to show how light falls on the fur for the animators who create the computer-generated version of the lovable bear. And that is the process I’m about to get an insight into today at the London headquarters of Framestore, the multi-award-winning visual effects company responsible for bringing him to life on screen.

Paddington might not be real, but when it comes to creating the films, he is hand-crafted in such detail that it feels as though he might as well be, hard stares and all. "The most important thing is making sure that the eyes are looking right into you, into your soul," animation director Pablo Grillo says.

Co-producer Rosie Alison adds: "In one of the first images that came out for the first film, he looked a bit dead-eyed. People were worried it wasn’t going to work. There were lots of comments about 'creepy Paddington'. He’s quite hard to capture in static images, but it’s all about coming alive through the eyes, and all the twitches in the face."

In Paddington in Peru, coming to UK cinemas on 8 November, Paddington Brown, voiced once more by Ben Whishaw, is issued with a British passport, which means he’s now allowed to travel abroad to visit Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) in his homeland.

"We wrote to the Home Office, asking if we could get a replica, and they actually issued Paddington with an official passport – there’s only one of these," Silva says, holding it up, complete with Paddington’s photo inside. "You wouldn’t think the Home Office would have a sense of humour, but under official observations, they’ve just listed him as Bear."

And so, passport in paw, Paddington is ready to set off on his next adventure. Henry Brown (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife Mary (Emily Mortimer, who takes over the role from Sally Hawkins, along with their children Judy (Madeleine Harris) and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) and housekeeper Mrs Bird (Julie Walters), travel with him to Peru. But when they arrive, Aunt Lucy is missing.

She has been living at the Home for Retired Bears, run by the smiling, singing Reverend Mother (Olivia Colman), but is nowhere to be found, which sets Paddington and his pals off into the Amazon to try to find her, aided by charming riverboat captain Hunter Cabot (Antonio Banderas) and his daughter Gina (newcomer Carla Tous).

"We wondered whether coming out of the oddness of a bear walking around London would work as well, but we’ve been thrilled to find how much potential there is," Alison says. "When he goes back to Peru, he has turned into a British gentleman."

The cast, crew and Paddington the "stuffie head" filmed at various locations in Peru, including the famed Incan citadels of Sacsayhuamán and Machu Picchu, and Colombia for two months. Multiple sets were also built on the 500-acre Berrybushes Farm, near Watford.

Director Dougal Wilson led the expedition, taking over from Paul King, who directed and co-wrote the previous two films but then went off to work on Wonka. King remains involved, however, having created the story alongside Simon Farnaby and Mark Burton.

Wilson, who was asked to come on board in 2019, says: "I was immediately incredibly apprehensive. Paddington 2 is one of the greatest films of all time. I was very scared and very anxious. I’m under no illusion of how difficult it is to follow up those first two films, and obviously a third film is always very challenging. I really hope we don’t let down the fans."

In order to immerse himself thoroughly in Paddington’s journey, Wilson ventured off into the Peruvian rainforest and stayed in the Tambopata National Reserve. "I almost trod on the second most poisonous snake in the Amazon, almost touched a wandering spider, which was also highly venomous, and I almost got bitten by a bullet ant. A rainbow macaw came down and ate a piece of cake from the tea table… Some of that has perhaps rubbed off on the film!"

Even though Paddington and Ben Whishaw weren’t actually on location, it still feels like he is very much there. As well as the "stuffie head" used to indicate where Paddington is standing, and eye-line sticks and even a big teddy bear that’s the same colour as Paddington, there’s an actor reading Paddington’s lines off camera. Lauren Barrand, who’s the same height as Paddington at 3ft 6in, stands in for the bear, and even wears his duffel coat and hat, so he can be added in later.

Back in London in a basement studio, Whishaw wears a head-mounted camera rig as he delivers his lines, separate to the rest of the cast. "The camera gives the animators a reference for mouth movement to lip-sync," Grillo explains. "And Ben has such wonderful eyes and thoughtful brows. This all provides a brilliant starting point, and a lovely reference for us to explore and start choreographing Paddington’s performance."

Grillo adds: "Paddington is quite minimal. We try to keep an essence of deadpan about him. There’s an inscrutability in his face. He’s got a cheery, upbeat quality, but generally he doesn’t smile much. He doesn’t smile well. Often, for marketing purposes, they want a big, gleaming smile and we go, 'Oh my God!' It’s very hard to find the right tone. It’s often just a tiny little something. He’s thoughtful, and he keeps everything quite buttoned up emotionally. He displays emotion through action more than through his face."

Animation supervisor Arslan Elver describes himself and the team of 120 animators working on Paddington at Framestore, using keyframe animation to bring the bear to life, as "digital puppeteers". "It’s a bit like traditional animation, but rather than pen and paper, we use a mouse and a keyboard," he explains. "It makes it a lot more special compared to some of the big blockbuster movies that employ motion-capture."

Read more:

• Paddington in Peru trailer gives first look at Olivia Colman and Antonio Banderas
• Ben Whishaw thought he'd botched his audition to play Paddington

There are at least 200 "controllers" used to gradually move the face and body of the animated characters, from a blink of an eye to the swing of an umbrella. I ask if I can have a go and, under his instruction, I use the mouse and tap a few keys to make Aunt Lucy turn her head ever so slightly. It takes me about five minutes to create that one movement, but turning that movement into a cinema-ready shot, complete with facial expressions and poses, takes considerably longer. One second of finished film requires 24 frames, and it can take an animator up to three days to create them. As Elver says, "It’s a labour of love."

It takes a village to make everyone’s favourite bear – and it all began, of course, with Michael Bond’s books, illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. "When we were doing the first film, the lovely Michael Bond was nervous about what it would be like, but he was also quite relaxed," Alison says. "He said there had been quite a variety of incarnations of Paddington, and somehow his spirit and who he is manages to persist through all of them. We all know Paddington." As it turns out, he’s very real after all.

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Paddington in Peru will be released on Friday 8th November 2024.

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