Paddington Bear’s voice actor Ben Whishaw has confessed he doesn’t like marmalade.
The fruit preserve made from the juice and peel of citrus fruits boiled with sugar and water is the go-to sandwich filling of choice for the beloved children’s character but not for Whishaw who is voicing him for the third time on the big screen in Paddington in Peru.
Appearing on Simon Mayo’s Greatest Hits Radio Drivetime Show on Wednesday to talk about the latest flick which is released on November 8 and also stars Antonio Banderas, Olivia Colman, Julie Waters, Hugh Bonneville, he explained: “It is me making the noise when you hear when you see Paddington eating marmalade sandwiches [on screen] but I really can’t stand marmalade, it doesn’t agree with me. So, what you hear is me eating bread or sometimes I munch on fruit or even my own hand!”
The 44-year-old actor also shared some of the behind-the-scenes secrets when it comes to working on the hit movies, saying: “You’ve got the script on a music stand, the film on a big screen but - at least when we begin - it’s at the very rough early stage of being edited so there’s no bear.
“Sometimes there’s a sketch, that doesn’t move, and sometimes there’s a tennis ball in place of Paddington and I wear a camera on my head that films my face and then you just have a crack at it. It’s a stab in the dark to begin with, you have no idea really what you’re doing, because there is no Paddington at that point.
“It takes a long time the whole process – from start to finish it’s a year, not every day obviously, or even every week, but it takes a year because it’s so enormously complex to animate the bear.”
Unlike the rest of the cast who filmed on location Ben didn’t get to go to South America, saying: “I did not leave Lexington Street where the post-production place is - I was just in the basement there the whole time. I would have liked [to have gone to Peru] but it was never even an option!”
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