After almost 20 years of working together in Notting Hill, Hugh Bonneville and Hugh Grant have reunited for Paddington 2 and both say the mutual affection hasn't waned
Actor Hugh Bonneville, best known for playing Robert Crawley in the ITV period drama series Downton Abbey will make a return as Mr Brown in the long awaited Paddington 2.
Bonneville’s return to the film
We were all so thrilled by the way the first film enchanted the audience around the world that it would be childish not to come back. It’s lovely to be in the company of the bear again.
Mr Brown
He ended up in the last film having found his mojo again and not being quite a straight jacket and boring like his life had been. Since he has had children, he has been very protective of them. And a part of Paddigton’s influence on the family was to release Mr Brown from his straight protective ways.
Mr Brown’s new look
We find him midst a mid life crisis as he gets passed over for promotion. He starts dying his hair, wants to buy a fast car. Well the craziness doesn’t end here, he tries be fit, thus taking up a new discipline called “chakrobatics” which is a fusion of Eastern tradition and body bending.
Paddigton and the community
Paddington is always the most stable character in the film, he doesn’t really change. Even when a mishap befalls him, he doesn’t really learn from it, rather resets to a positive attitude all the time and everything is alright. So when he sets his heart on getting a present for aunt lucy, he needs to earn some pennies to get the money to buy it. He sets out to do odd jobs to make money. This brings him in contact with lot of people in this multi-culture community around Windsor gardens, from a local doctor to the news agent who always has parrot on her shoulder, bereaved colonel who has forgotten his self respect and dignity and doesn’t really shave and shuffles around in his dressing gown. All these are characters in the community that Paddington touches upon or comes in contact with.
The film being a love letter to london
To be British is to be quirky and tolerant yet full of contradiction. The first film was a love letter to london. It was full of these glorious chocolate box images that overseas people take home when they come to visit. Even this film underlines it with greater definition as a part of the plot involves going to some of the iconic landmarks around london. It absolutely draws from the very strengths of British culture and all its quirks.
Director Paul King:
Paul’s contribution cannot be praised highly enough because it really is what he has been thinking about, his creative process and his imagination. He goes into this strange hard stare and keeps worrying in his head on why he can’t get the scene done properly. He then comes up with a new way of doing it or revisits the scene in few days. I don’t have the imagination he has and I always admire it. He is always striving to be more cinematic and more entertaining.
Huge Grant:
We were sitting in rehearsal, actually, and I was looking at Hugh, and I said, “Do you realise it’s 19 years since we did Notting HillIJ” and we both suddenly felt really quite old, except the difference is, he doesn’t look a day older. It’s a very funny part, and I said to Paul, “Who are you thinking of for Phoenix Buchannan, that’s a tough part to get the tone right, because it could be so over the top that you don’t buy it, and don’t believe it. And it could be so sold fashioned in style, as a ham, that people won’t get it either”, and he said, “I’m thinking of Hugh Grant”, and I said, “Perfect”.
Hugh doesn’t get to play that broad so often, and he’s a very, very, as we all know, his comedic instincts are brilliant, but to actually be able to do some physical comedy like that, and adopt those characters, I’m hoping was a lot of fun for him.
(Paddington 2 will release on January 12)