The latest chapter in the much beloved Paddington film series introduces several new characters as we see the bear travel to Peru in search of his missing Aunt Lucy. But what you may not know is that the majority of these new introductions are played by a singular actor – Antonio Banderas.
If you are at all familiar with his work voicing the incredible Puss in Boots, you will already be aware that if there is one man who can take on several hilarious roles in a single movie, it’s Banderas. And he sure does deliver!
In Paddington in Peru we first meet Banderas as swashbuckling boat captain Hunter Cabot, who offers to help the Brown family in their Amazonian quest. However, we soon learn that Cabot is in constant conversation in his head with several of his ancestors, all of whom are played by Banderas.
Each one is very unique, with Cabot’s ancestors including everything from an Edwardian explorer to a female pilot. Banderas embraces every single one but admits to GamesRadar+ it was certainly challenging, taking on so many identities. However, he also adds that he had fun with it too, leaning into the various outfits and wigs to help him bring these characters to life.
Banderas explains: “They have a real participation in some moments as they are characters that actually live in the head of Hunter. It was nice to play them because I have a tendency to play like a kid, and when they put you in make-up and very specific dress, your whole body goes there to start playing with it. Your voice changes, your manners change.”
He continues: “It was fun but it was hard because of the make-up. I had fantastic artists doing it but it was a lot of hours in the make-up trailer and I spent most of the movie there, with caps and beards, and I felt sometimes like a racoon attacked me in the morning. But it’s a part of the movie and I had a lot of fun with it actually.”
And if you are wondering which of these characters is Banderas’ favorite, in response to our question he has a definite answer: “I quite like the girl actually!” In fact, Banderas was dressed as this female pilot when he first met co-star Olivia Colman, who plays the all-singing all-dancing Reverend Mother.
As she tells us, it was a delightful surprise meeting Banderas dressed as his female character: “That’s when I first met you! You were like, ‘Hello Olivia, it’s Antonio’. I opened the door and was like, ‘Wow’!”
The female pilot isn’t the favorite of filmmaker Dougal Wilson though, who takes over directing duties from Paul King, who helmed the previous two movies. He reveals to us that he has a soft spot for another of Banderas’ characters: “I quite like the Edwardian, the guy who is hacking through the jungle when he gets set upon by a jaguar, although you can’t see the jaguar, that was a special budgetary trick to avoid having an actual jaguar!”
Wilson also elaborated on where the idea came from to have not only the ancestors living in Cabot’s head, but Banderas playing all of them. As he concludes, the aim was to give the character an obstacle to face, whilst also providing comic relief too: “We wanted to show that families can be both positive and negative influences on someone’s life. And we wanted to show somebody trying to overcome the expectations of their ancestry, which may have been not altogether positive.
“So, that’s where the idea came from. He had to overcome something from his past, and he could do that with the influence of someone who was kind and polite, who could show him the way the world would be right. So, that was the idea then we just thought it’d be really fun to go through history and dress Antonio up in a series of funny costumes!”
Paddington in Peru releases in UK cinemas on November 8 before heading to the US next year, hitting theaters on January 17. For more on the movie, here’s what director Wilson had to say about the film’s tribute to the late Queen.
And don’t forget to check out our guide to the upcoming movies to get on your watchlist.