How do you follow up a film which managed to dethrone Citizen Kane as the best film of all time? Well, if you’re first-time feature filmmaker Dougal Wilson, you approach directing Paddington in Peru with a dose of anxiety and with a bit of trust in the process.
As guiding force Paul King vacated his directors seat to make Wonka, suddenly the opportunity for a new voice to help bring the stories of England’s loveable immigrant bear to the big screen emerged. Dougal Wilson stepped into King’s place, confidently carrying forth the lightness, and darkness, that we’ve come to know from one of the most optimistic family friendly creations out there.
In Paddington in Peru, the charming Brown family head south of the Equator to Peru after discovering that Paddington’s (voiced by Ben Wishaw, performed on set by Lauren Barrand) beloved Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton) has gone missing. As they arrive at the home for retired bears, they realise that she might have set off on foot to discover the lost city of El Dorado. Hijinks and charm ensues in a worthy and welcome entry in this heart-lightening series.
In the following interview, Dougal Wilson talks about the pressure of following up two much beloved Paddington films, breaking out of short film jail, how his work in short form filmmaking and advertising influenced his work on Paddington in Peru, the quiet politics of the series, and about working with Lauren Barrand as the on set Paddington.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity purposes.
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As you’re taking over the reigns from Paul King, I imagine there might be a bit of pressure carrying on the legacy of the first two Paddington films. How do you deal with that as a director stepping into this entry?
Dougal Wilson: That is an understatement. [It was] absolutely terrifying. When I was first approached, I was flattered for about 10 seconds, and then that soon developed into utter terror and anxiety and cold sweats, and the certain degree of imposter syndrome because I didn't do the first two. Paul King did it brilliantly and coined the style, made all those decisions: Who was the family? How would you design Paddington? Who Paddington's voice was. All that stuff. I just inherited that. So with that leg work having been done, there was even more pressure to not mess up the third instalment. It was highly intimidating, but it was also an opportunity that I felt I’d probably regret more if I turned it down. So, yeah, it was highly anxiety inducing, but that anxiety motivated me.
I've talked to Australian filmmakers who have had a career in advertising and short films, and they've progressed into features, and the term that they've used has been ‘short film jail’. Are you familiar with that term?
DW: Is that when no one trusts them to do something longer?
Sort of. It’s partially about trying to find somebody who has the trust in you as a filmmaker to be able to take that leap to the feature film. I'm curious if you ever felt that have gone from ads and shorts to now doing a Paddington film? Did you ever feel ‘when will my opportunity come along’?
DW: Well, absolutely. There’s a two sort of prong to that. The world of short form filmmaking is great fun when it's going well and you produce things relatively quickly that, by their nature, are very contrasting to each other; I might be doing a commercial for a couple months, and I'll do a music video and they're very colourful way to make things, because you're not staying on the same thing for a long time. So, they can be quite hard to go cold turkey from if it's going well. Sometimes you haven't got a choice, otherwise you haven’t got a job for a while. So breaking away from them can be tricky [as you need] to focus on a longer thing. And that's what you need to do: focus. It's very tricky just to down tools and go straight behind the camera onto a feature because that's not how it works.
With Paddington in Peru, I was approached round about 2021, during the pandemic. There were those short form opportunities, but I just had to go ‘No, I'm developing the script to Paddington throughout 2022.’ To begin with, that was quite uncomfortable, because I'm used to being in development. That's why I'm in Australia now. I'm working on some commercials for Telstra, and it's great to be working again and drawing storyboards and having fun. But with a feature film, you have to develop it and make sure the script is right; it's not an overnight thing. I'm not very good at mentally multitasking, so when I say I went cold turkey from short form from pretty much 2021 onwards, we didn't shoot the film for till 2023, so that was tough. But it's nice that I got this. It's also nice just to clear your brain of other projects and really concentrate.
The other thing is that obviously, producers and studios often want someone who's had experience in longer form, because it is a very different style of filmmaking. Short form stuff is great, and you have to make sure the story can work in 30, 60, or 90 seconds. Longer form characters are much more developed. The story has to work on a much more macro scale. You have to work with actors a lot more intensely. A lot of this, I didn’t have that much experience in, so it's really to the credit of Studio Canal and Rosie Alison, the producers, that I was approached. I was very flattered when they approached me, and they seemed to trust me. I think I was very lucky to be approached. I had been trying to develop longer form stuff, but actually haven’t had much evidence of it, but I think they thought that the style of my short form stuff lent itself to Paddington.
It's a unique franchise, and it involves almost short form sequences within a long form story, and it has mixed mediums and different techniques and visual ingenuity, which Paul King brilliantly introduced. I think they thought that style of my body of work was appropriate for this. Then they obviously had to take a bit of a leap of faith on the working with actors [thing] and developing a story over a longer form, but hopefully they're not regretting the choice.
Having seen the film, I can assure you that they would have nothing to regret. I’ve also watched some of your previous work, particularly the Olympics related work, there is a clear sense of optimism and hope in them. In Paddington, that is a core theme of him as a character and the narrative as a whole. Do you feel that is why they might have selected you as somebody who has a clear understanding of what optimism and hope is?
DW: It probably helped that my show reel isn’t full of highly depressing things. I like things that are fun. I like things that are entertaining. I like things that uplift you. Not to say that I want everything to be completely happy all the time. Paddington works because it has shades of dark and light in it. I like things that shake you up and invigorate you but do it hopefully in a way that's not annoying or grating, that bring you along with it.
I've been lucky in that the scripts I've had in, say advertising, seem to be ones that don't patronise too much and seem to respect the viewer. Obviously, I've had more control with my music videos. Well, that's just the style of storytelling I like. They obviously thought that could be transferable to Paddington, whether there's that much similarity or not, I don't know.
The other thing was that I was just trying to continue the style that Paul established in the first two films. I wasn't too bothered about stamping my own style on it. I just wanted to competently continue what he'd started because I really admired that style.
I'm not sure if you've seen the Australian film The Castle, but there's a term that we use from it where we say ‘it’s about the vibe.’ And there's the vibe in your work.
DW: I've got to see that movie.
It's really good. It's an Australian comedy. It's very light. I bring it up in relation to Paddington because there is this vibe of positivity with a touch of darkness as well. And I'm curious about that blend of darkness and light that we see in Paddington that is so delicately balanced. There's a tonal tight rope that both yourself and Paul have managed to create with the trilogy. How difficult is it navigating that balance?
DW: I've worked with a great [creative crew] and team of writers, as well as Jon Foster, James Lamont, and Mark Burton. The story credit on this one is Paul King, Simon Farnaby, and Mark Burton. Paul and Simon wrote Paddington 2. It’s very helpful to have that experience guiding the story, because the story is ultimately the most important thing. The three writers who actually are credited with the script were in the writers' rooms on the first two films, so they were very experienced. Mark is also one of the writers on the new Wallace and Gromit film.
I was working with good minds who get that to make lightness, you have to have darkness, and to make fun, you can't be silly the whole time. You have to have emotional shades. That's inherit in Paddington as well because Paddington is a very earnest character. He can be funny, but he's also earnest, and he also really cares about doing the right thing, and he really cares when bad things happen. So, you know from that you are going to get these shades that will hopefully be moving when you watch them.
Ben (Wishaw) has talked about the quiet politics of the film. One of the core aspects of Paddington as a character is that his story is one of immigration and allowing immigration to take place. One of the most tender parts of Paddington in Peru is that it is not just about immigration to England, but it's also about being able to return home. I'm curious if you can talk about the quiet politics of Paddington, and what it's like to be able to explore that in a family friendly film.
DW: It's always tricky when you're trying to say what politics does Paddington represent? I suppose it's just goodness. It's trying to see the best in everybody, trying to tolerate and see the story from everyone's side. If that's interpreted as a political approach, then fine, but it more just comes from [Paddington’s phrase] “If we're kind and polite, the world will be right.”
Obviously, we don't have to get into the absolute mechanics of the practicalities of that when we make films, we say, ‘Wouldn't it be nice if people could be like this?’ Which is great, but obviously the world's a more complicated place than that. But within the confines of a film, you can at least strive to show an approach to life, which… gosh it’s very difficult to answer this question.
It is. I hesitated writing it down, because this is a family friendly film, right? And we usually don't talk about politics in relation to films like Paddington.
DW: It's also very difficult to interpret things apolitically. He represents an approach to life that we would all like to aspire to, and we can all admire. And sometimes it's difficult to do that, but wouldn't it be nice if we could?
I think one of the aspects that we're kind of talking around as well is the way that Paddington as a character does change people. I've grew up reading Paddington and having seen the animation and then seeing these films, they change you as a person. I'm curious as a director, what aspect of Paddington has changed you as a person going forward?
DW: Did you have the Michael Hordern and Ivor Wood animation in Australia?
We had it on the ABC.
DW: British animation in the seventies for kids was awesome. You had Oliver Postgate ones, you had Ivor the Engine. That one had a very interesting technique as well. It was a stop frame puppet with two-dimensional cut outs that also moved. It was quite interesting. And then you had Michael Horden's awesome voice as Paddington.
How has it changed me? Well, I don't know if it's changed, you know? It's very gratifying when you hear people say the film made them happy, and it's nice to know that film can do that. I'm not that cynical a person anyway, but it's easy to be cynical, and it's nice to know that you don't always have to do cynicism to tell a story. Things that are optimistic and positive can work too. I don’t know if that’s changed me, because that was often the approach I had with stuff anyway.
It's made me realise that things are always going to be hard work no matter how long or short they are. I thought after doing a film, that going back to short form would be a doddle. It's not, it’s exactly the same as it was before. To make something half decent, you have to put a lot of work and a lot of care into it.
It's made me realise that when you're making a long form film, the team around you is vital. I get a lot of attention as the publicity for these films and getting interviewed, but it really is a team effort. Without Pablo Grillo, the animation director, without Rosie Alison, the producer, Úna Ní Dhonghaíle, the editor, Andy Kelly, the production designer, Charlotte Walter, the costume designer, Nick Laurence, the first Assistant Director; they're all so integral and they're all so dedicated. It's vital that you trust your team around you, otherwise the film just won't operate you.
You’re also working with Lauren Barrand, whose work as the Paddington stand-in is possibly unnoticed by the public. Can you talk about working alongside Lauren to bring Paddington to life?
DW: She's an absolute veteran in this role. She's been involved since the first film. She even has a tattoo that says, ‘Please look after this bear.’ Lauren is fantastic. It's weird, because she's a really good actor, once she puts on the Red Hat and the blue coat, she is Paddington. We have someone who sounds like Ben doing the voice off screen. When you're blocking a scene out, she is Paddington, she'll even lip sync the words you're hearing off screen Paddington voice saying, so after rehearsals, and then a couple of takes, you start genuinely believing Paddington is on. It's so valuable for everybody, because part of the reason these films work is that you believe Paddington, and part of that is the actors making you believe they're performing to Paddington. Starting the shots of the day with Lauren being Paddington really helps that.
She actually appears in one of the scenes in real life. There's a silly joke when someone wonders if the by ‘El Dorado’, they mean a Piri Piri chicken shop in London, and it cuts to a chip shop, and one of the patrons in the chip shop is Lauren.