TL;DR:
- Queen Elizabeth II appeared in a video with Paddington Bear marking her June 2022 Platinum Jubilee.
- “Paddington isn’t really in the room,” the video’s writer said, highlighting Queen Elizabeth’s “real acting.”
- Similar to corgis, Paddington Bear became linked to Queen Elizabeth.
Someone get Queen Elizabeth II a posthumous honorary Oscar or BAFTA. Months before her death, the monarch made a surprise appearance in a Paddington Bear video. The occasion? Her Platinum Jubilee celebrating 70 years on the throne. But it wasn’t all marmalade sandwiches. According to the co-writer of the Paddington Bear video, it took some serious acting chops from Queen Elizabeth.
Paddington wasn’t ‘really there’ when Queen Elizabeth filmed the video
The queen didn’t actually lock eyes with the character made famous by the late author Michael Bond despite appearing to do so in the video. Rather, movie magic simply gave it that illusion.
Frank Cottrell Boyce, co-writer of the Paddington video and the queen’s 2012 James Bond sketch, revealed it took “proper acting” from the late monarch.
“You’ve got to remember that that’s real acting that’s going on there,” he told Variety. “Paddington isn’t really in the room. She’s acting with an eye-line and with someone pretending to be Paddington. That’s proper acting going on. But I also think it’s true happiness.”
The queen also had more lines in the Paddington video compared to the Bond one “partly because it was a lot cheaper to film her than it was to film Paddington,” Boyce shared. “But she had a lot more lines and didn’t she deliver them brilliantly and with evident enjoyment?”
“And as I said, that wasn’t an easy task. Paddington is not really there,” he added. “That’s technically an amazing performance, actually. It’s a brilliantly timed comic performance.”
As for who played Paddington Bear with Queen Elizabeth, the answer is Ben Whishaw (via Today). The same actor also voiced the bear in the 2014 Paddington movie and 2017’s Paddington 2.
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Why the queen’s video ‘resonated so much’: Wasn’t ‘purely a cute thing to do’
Sure, many hearts melted seeing two British icons together when the queen had Paddington over for tea. Titled “Ma’amalade sandwich Your Majesty?” the video’s racked up more than 14 million views to date.
However, as Boyce explained, the two-and-a-half-minute clip went beyond just a “cute thing.” Noting the “astute idea” came from Buckingham Palace, he explained how Paddington “embodies” many of the queen’s “values.”
“What an astute idea it was to have her act with Paddington because Paddington embodies so many of the values that she stood for,” Boyce said. “Paddington is all about kindness, tolerance, being kind to strangers, politeness, these things that are about character.”
“And those are values that she’s embodied throughout her life,” he said of the queen, saying “they’re not values that are uncontested at the moment.”
“So it was not purely a cute thing to do. It was significant. And that’s why it’s resonated so much,” Boyce concluded.
Paddington Bear ‘knocked the corgi off the top spot’ after Queen Elizabeth died, according to Prince William
Following Queen Elizabeth’s death on Sept. 8, 2022, Prince William joined other royals in greeting members of the public. As mourners left flowers, cards, and stuffed animals in remembrance of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, the Prince of Wales made an observation.
He joked Paddington Bear “knocked the corgi off the top spot,” saying the queen’s dogs wouldn’t “take that very well,” (via Daily Mail). William also confessed the Paddington Bear tributes to his late grandmother, which were later donated, had him getting choked up.
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