By Cain Noble-Davies and James Mottram
Founder of Heyday Films, the company who brought us not only every Harry Potter film to date but also critical darlings like Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, David Heyman has been in the industry for over twenty years. His latest venture is Paddington 2, the sequel to the 2014 hit Paddington.
Karen Jankel, daughter of Paddington creator Michael Bond, has been the public face behind the character for many years. Michael himself once asked the world to “Please look after this bear”, and since his tragic death earlier this year, Karen appears determined to make sure her father’s words are heeded.
Can you recall your first memory of Paddington?
Karen: Well, he was always there because the first book came out the year I was born so, by the time I was old enough to know anything at all, Paddington was a part of the family. He was very, very real, we had the physical bear that inspired my father to write the first stories, who lived with us, but he was more than that; he was a presence in our family. I don’t have any ‘first memory’; it’s a bit like saying “Do you have a first memory of your parents?” You probably don’t because they’re omnipresent.
David: I don’t know about my first memories of Paddington. We had been working on Paddington for a long time. The first film came out and it sort of went “boom” but it wasn’t an overnight success. We optioned the rights 10 – 12 years before the first film was made. When I told my mum I was developing it, as one does, she… She is a bit of a hoarder and she brought out my Paddington from when I was five or six years old, and now I’m proud to have it in my possession, and sharing it with my son. I think that’s because Paddington disappeared from my life, in a way. I mean, there was a time when he was important for reading but I moved onto other things. And Rosie [Alison, Head of Development], who works in my company and has been there for 15 years, said to me “You should have a look at Paddington.” I read them all and I fell back in love because they’re so beautifully written. There’s such a simplistic… actually, it’s just layers beneath the surface that reveal themselves to you. And they made me laugh and smile as an adult. I can see why they’re children’s books but actually, they’re the sort of children’s books, like this film I hope, that adults can enjoy too.
Karen: I think one of the reasons for that is that my father never set out to write a children’s book. So, when he wrote, it was for his own pleasure. He didn’t know what he was going to write. So, in fact, they’re quite sophisticated, the novel-length stories, in the same way that the film is as well.
David: People ask “How do you choose your films?” I make films that I can find a connection with and films that I think I would enjoy. That’s the way, hopefully, one does good work because, if you’re trying to write for an audience as opposed to writing for one’s self… Yes, the audience is there, but, for example, with making Paddington 2, if we’d listened to “Oh, you gotta make this a sequel,” we could be completely paralyzed if we listened to the voices of everybody saying something, but you actually just have trust yourself and do what you love.
You really capture the spirit of Paddington here. So many Hollywood films tend to trample on childhood memories. Garfield would be one example.
David: I’ve worked with quite a lot of books. The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, Yes Man [with Jim Carrey] was inspired by a book, and it’s understanding what are the essential elements of that book that you are drawn to. Why do you want to tell this story? What is it about it that made it come to life? And that’s where I began. And then it’s about finding the right people to work with because we’re sitting here talking but, actually, the person who deserves the real credit, besides Michael for having created it, is [screenwriter/director] Paul King. Paul knew more about Paddington than I did when he came for his first meeting. Yes, he’d made Mighty Boosh, which was wonderfully subversive, and he had done Bunny and the Bull, which had an audience of six, of which I was one of them. But you saw in Bunny and the Bull, the line drawings were reminiscent of the Paddington TV series. I met him, and I saw that generosity of spirit, I saw he was funny but not mean, not cynical. There was a sense of optimism and possibility about him, which, I think, lies at the heart of Paddington. That was the key. It could have not worked, but it was much more interesting for me to work with Paul King. It’s like daring to fail. You’ve got to dare to fail. You don’t want to inhabit that safe place that Garfield does, and then operate in that safe place, going for the broad schticky jokes, as opposed to actually having a digital character and being willing to bet that that should give you emotion and tenderness, as well as being a comic foil or centre of comedy. But you have to reach and dare and trust someone like Paul King to make something special.
Have there been many approaches to adapt the Paddington books?
Karen: Yes. There were but we always sort of said “No, it couldn’t work”. I think one of the things was that, until CGI reached the level that it did at the time that Dave came along, I don’t think it would have been possible. I don’t think that Paddington works as well, say, as a drawn animation. I mean, there have been television series. The original television series worked with a puppet because he was a real, three-dimensional bear, and I think the same thing with the films. So, the point at which David approached us, CGI was there but also David himself and his track record, we obviously know with Harry Potter, but his understanding of Paddington as a character. And that came across, and that’s when we thought “Yep”.
David: And then, what has been brilliant, is that Michael and Karen have just been supportive and made the occasional suggestion but allowed us as filmmakers to make the films. Jo Rowling was similar to that, correcting if you’re going wrong. Michael was a bit nervous when we showed him the script and we had left out the tea room scene in the first one. But he didn’t say “You have to do this”, he just said “you might want to think about this”. They seemed to understand that, just as I’m not a novelist, they’re not filmmakers. But actually, having that outside point of view can be very helpful.
Were you surprised when the first film was a hit?
David: Every film I’ve ever worked on, I’ve been convinced that it’s a clunker until it comes out. Every film. That’s paranoia, but it’s also what keeps you going. That’s why I love working with Paul, because there’s that line “A film’s never finished; you just let it go”. Well, actually, you don’t let it go: it’s torn from your hands because of the deadline. We were working on the film two weeks ago, grading and mixing and last bits of visual effects, and to Paul, every part of the process, he tears it apart and puts it back together and it’s quite a high-wire act. But I do the same, so it’s like a kindred spirit, it’s someone who’s really ambitious for the work. On the first one, I was probably more nervous about it then on the second because, having gone through that and understanding the process, you’re more comfortable. It’s funny, Marks & Spencer is doing a big Paddington sale and I looked at the press release. I shouldn’t say this, but it felt so casual, like it was slapped together, and a brand. I don’t think of Paddington as a brand. It’s not product, this is not product.
But that’s the way Hollywood approaches so many properties.
David: But I’ve never done that with Harry Potter, with Paddington, with none of it; you just don’t. There’s a handmade quality about film that you live, breathe and die, and you sweat and you cry and you go to the very edge of exhaustion to make it happen. But it’s not product or brand; Paddington is alive. I mean, the conversations you have about Paddington are proper character conversations: “What’s he feeling?”; “I don’t think he looks ‘this’ enough or ‘that’ enough”, and that’s what we’re dealing with the whole time, that brand.
When Paul was writing the script, how similar was the character of Phoenix Buchanan to Hugh Grant?
David: The character was called Hugh; guess who we thought of when it was being written? But Hugh isn’t that character, just to be very clear. He is incredibly self-deprecating, he has a great sense of humour in general and about himself. I think Hugh Grant is an underrated actor and underrated performer. I think that we got so used to him doing his batting eyelids and charm. Don’t underestimate how tired that is, for a start, and he was brilliant in that. But he’s a proper actor who’s quite brave and I think he’s getting braver. It’s almost as though the film he did with Meryl Streep [Florence Foster Jenkins], the fact he’s doing Jeremy Thorpe next (in the BBC TV drama A Very English Scandal with Paddington co-star Ben Whishaw), the fact that he does Paddington, where it’s a completely different sort of humour than we’ve seen him do before. He’s taking the mickey out of himself, and acting in general. And watching him and Paul together: Lots of improvisation, lots of “this is what it is” and then “let’s try it this way, let’s try it that way, let’s add this line”. Each of them perfectionists and each of them working without ego.
The ten years between optioning and the first film, was that purely logistical because of all the work you were doing at Warner Bros or is there a reason to it?
David: It began without Paul and we had a very good script by Hamish McColl, which was very funny. And then we got Paul on board and we changed it. I still think it’s funny, had a lot of funny things in it.
Karen: But it wasn’t right…
David: Then we did a presentation for Warner Bros., where I used all the Harry Potter resources… alas, not around anymore, Stephenie McMillan, who is our set decorator on Potter, and Paul and her and some of the storyboard artists built this little chain with wallpaper. It was a presentation but the most sophisticated presentation you’ve ever seen, and Warner said no.
It’s unbelievable now, but at the time, it wasn’t. It was a risky proposition. Even though the film was relatively cheap, we were able to make the film, I would say, 30-40% cheaper not at Warner Bros. because it was an independent film. They’re most certainly regretting it, as we explore where the film is going to go and whatnot, they’re one of the companies that is keenly pursuing it. I think we got to make the film we wanted to make. Who would’ve thought StudioCanal, a French company, would take it over? A British institute, an icon like that? But they did, and they are very producer-director-friendly. They allowed us to make this film undisturbed. And, to give them even more credit, there was a point where the budget went up not inconsiderably, for various reasons that were beyond our control. They were brave. Normally, those companies, they like to cover the budget, but they went beyond the call because they believed in what we were doing. It’s that risk, that bravery and that sensitivity to what we were doing that has reaped the rewards that it has.
What was the secret of putting all the very best of the British actors, the pop culture actors, there’s so many of them, in one film?
David: Well, Paul and Simon [Farnaby, co-writer] know a lot of people. They come from the comedy world. I mean, literally, Hugh Grant, who I heard was impossible to get to say yes, we had a yes within 48 hours of sending him the script. And he hadn’t seen the first film; he read it. Michael Bond’s creation warms many people’s hearts and one of the pleasures of this film is I hope people go back and read the books. My hope is that audiences really like it. We’re very fortunate and thanks to Karen and to Michael for allowing us to go on this fantastic odyssey.
Karen: I think Michael would be delighted. I mean, you couldn’t fail to be, really. He wouldn’t have known till he saw it, like the moment he saw it. He could be nervous because I think I was nervous.
David: I was nervous. I’m still nervous.
Do you have a pre-release ritual?
David: I don’t. But showing it to Karen, showing it to an author, is always the most harrowing moment. It really is, because that’s who you want… if you feel you’ve made them happy, you’re onto a good thing. For the first four or five Harry Potter films, I used to sit with Jo and watch them the first time around. I think that’s an important thing: I don’t think you should ever take any of it for granted. I’m one of the luckiest people in the world but it could all disappear. To work with this, to work with Potter, to work with someone like Alfonso Cuarón, people like that. It could all go away, but while it’s there, I’m going to ride that bus and enjoy every moment of it.
Paddington 2 is in cinemas December 21, 2017. There are advance previews for the film December 9 – 10 and December 16 – 17, 2017.
