Hugh Bonneville: why Paddington in Peru is precisely the tonic we all need right now

SussexWorld

Hugh Bonneville is Mr Brown for the last time as Paddington in Peru completes the happiest of trilogies.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Fantastic

00:06to speak again to Hugh Bonneville. Now Hugh, you're back for the third time as Mr Brown

00:10as Paddington returns, and I know I'm far more excited than probably good or healthy

00:16for me. There's a fantastic buzz around the release of Paddington 3, isn't there?

00:21I think the arrival of Paddington back onto our screens is a welcome tonic at a, let's

00:26face it, a pretty noisy time in our world when we have all sorts of conflicts of either

00:35political or geopolitical sorts. And so to have an innocent story of a bear trying to

00:40do right by people and to be kind and polite is a pretty healthy dose of medicine.

00:47And that's a huge part of the popularity and the attraction, isn't it? As you were saying,

00:51he is the innocent, we want to look after him, and everything he does is for the better

00:57of everyone else, isn't it?

00:58Well, the great thing about this Michael Bonne's creation is that he has no malice about him.

01:03He has no self-interest, really. He's always just trying to understand the world a bit

01:08better and how he can fit in better and how he can help other people. And that's why he's

01:14become, I think, such a sort of totemic character of goodness and the better thing, the better

01:22parts of all of us.

01:23And Mr. Brown is rather lovely and appealing too, isn't he?

01:28Yeah, Mr. Brown is, well, he has various crises in each of the journeys we've sent the family

01:36Brown on. And in this one, he's been told in no uncertain terms by his new punchy American

01:42boss, that if he wants to survive in the risk analyst's world, he needs to embrace

01:50the risk, not just calculate it. And so going to Peru seems to be just the right level of

01:58terror for Mr. Brown to embrace.

02:00And that's the lovely thing, isn't it? How each film moves on and is very different to

02:04the previous one, isn't it? And you were saying so intriguingly that in a way, number three

02:08reverses the situation of number one, doesn't it?

02:12Well, in the sense that Paddington, the first Paddington film is very much the, you know,

02:18has the bones of the first book, which is Paddington being discovered this stowaway

02:23in a strange land, not quite understanding how the world works and reaching out for the

02:28hand of friendship, which the Browns ultimately offer, first in the form of Mrs. Brown and

02:34then gradually the family, to the extent that at the end of that first film, if you may

02:38remember, we were on the roof of the Natural History Museum and Mr. Brown was defiantly

02:44taking on the baddie, saying that, you know, he may have a worrying marmalade habit, but

02:49he's one of us. And so in this third film, we actually reverse the situation that the

02:55Browns are now out of their comfort zone and go into the jungle from where Paddington

03:02originated. And Paddington feels he's going to confidently find his way home.

03:07But actually, he's a bear who does get a little bit lost. But we eventually, you know, he

03:12finds his own roots and asks the question, what is home, really? You know, can you have

03:19a home that is your tribe, so to speak, as well as a home where you end up? So the Browns

03:25going on that little adventure with him is a nice little reversal of the original.

03:30That's a subtext that makes the whole thing so appealing, isn't it? But sadly, you're

03:34saying very neatly after the three films, this is it, probably for you as Mr Brown.

03:40Yes, well, you know, the Rosie Allison, the producer said, you know, should we all get

03:44together for one last outing in a trilogy? So it feels like a perfect number for me.

03:49Fantastic. Well, really lovely to speak to you. I can't tell you just how much I'm looking

03:54forward to seeing it. It's going to be great.

03:55I hope you enjoy it.

03:57Absolutely. Enjoying the thought of it. Lovely to speak to you. Thank you so much, Hugh.

04:02Hey, cheers, bye-bye.

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