Mental Floss

Paddington Just Got His Passport

Paddington Bear is headed home to Peru—with a little help from the Home Office.

ByEllen Gutoskey|
Paddington at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Paddington' (2014).
Paddington at the Los Angeles premiere of 'Paddington' (2014). | Vincent Sandoval/GettyImages

After exploring England for two whole movies, Paddington Bear is finally headed back to his homeland of Peru for the franchise’s third installment, aptly named Paddington in Peru and premiering in the UK on November 8. (It’s not slated to hit U.S. theaters until January 17, 2025.)

To leave the country Paddington needed a passport, so producers requested one from the UK’s Home Office—a fake one, that is, just for use as a prop.

“We wrote to the Home Office, asking if we could get a replica, and they actually issued Paddington with an official passport—there’s only one of these,” co-producer Rob Silva told Radio Times. “You wouldn’t think the Home Office would have a sense of humour, but under official observations, they’ve just listed him as Bear.”

The film will follow Paddington and his whole adoptive family, the Browns (including housekeeper Mrs. Bird, played by Julie Walters), as they embark on a quest through the Amazon to locate his missing Aunt Lucy. The cast needed real passports, too, since they spent two months shooting on location in Peru and Colombia (though Ben Whishaw, who voices Paddington, recorded all of his audio in London).

Paddington didn’t always hail from Peru. In early drafts, writer Michael Bond had him originating in Africa—before Bond’s agent told him that Africa isn’t home to any bears. Peru, meanwhile, plays host to the Andean bear (a.k.a. the spectacled bear), South America’s only bear species. Ergo, Paddington is a spectacled bear. And while his real-life counterparts don’t come upon marmalade in the wild, they’d probably like it: Andean bears are big fans of fruit.

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