Antonio Banderas 'went quite method' playing all of his character's ancestors in 'Paddington in Peru'
Warning: This article contains spoilers about
Antonio Banderas contains multitudes — and in Paddington in Peru, he gets to show them off.
Banderas stars as Hunter Cabot, a riverboat captain who agrees to ferry Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) and the Brown family down the Peruvian Amazon as they hunt for Aunt Lucy (voiced by Imelda Staunton).
But Cabot has a secret. Once he recognizes a symbol on Aunt Lucy's bracelet, he decides to use Paddington to help him find the lost gold of El Dorado, a venture that has been a family obsession for generations. Cabot's gold-hungry ancestors — including a Spanish conquistador, a missionary, a female early 20th-century pilot, an Edwardian explorer, and a prospector — come to life as visual representations of voices inside Cabot's head, pushing him to give into his greed and forsake everything in his life to find the mythical city.
Related: Emily Mortimer says stepping in for Sally Hawkins in third Paddington film was 'nerve-wracking'
That proved a unique acting challenge for Banderas, who plays all five of these ancestors, bringing them to life with extravagant costumes, hair, and make-up. "You got a bunch of ancestors that are in his brain that appear visually," Banderas tells Entertainment Weekly. "And they talk to him and drive the character nuts. Putting all of those things together was a little bit more difficult than normal."
Though the general arc of the story had been established by the time Dougal Wilson stepped in for Paul King as director, it was Wilson who helped develop the idea of the ancestors and their impact on Hunter. "We thought, 'What's an interesting array of characters and a spectrum from the different eras of colonial exploiters of South America?' That's how we came up with these characters," he explains.
Related: Hugh Grant says Paddington 2 might be "the best film I've ever been in"
Banderas credits wardrobe and makeup with helping him discover each ancestor. "Once we decided on the looks of each one of them, they put it on you for the first time, and immediately your body language starts changing," he explains. "Your voice starts going with it. It is almost automatic to me. If you didn't kill the kid you once were, you get all of these things on top of you and your body starts moving in a different way. You start having fun, they [film] you, and when you least expect it, it's done."
Indeed, Wilson notes that Banderas would often get lost in the characters once in costume. "We thought, 'Well, it's going to be fun putting Antonio Banderas into all these costumes. I wonder if he'll be up for that,'" Wilson recalls. "He was completely up for it. In fact, it was very difficult snapping him out of the characters when he was wearing those costumes."
Related: Antonio Banderas reveals the actor he'd want to pass his Zorro mask on to if he returns for a third film
Audiences are sure to have their favorites of this panoply of outrageous characters. Wilson counts the Edwardian explorer and conquistador among his top choices. "Antonio was genuinely quite intimidating," Wilson notes. "He was quite scary to talk to. Antonio became quite method when he wore those costumes.""He didn't have to wear them very long," the director concludes. "But then when they came off, suddenly it was Antonio again."
Perhaps Paddington isn't the only one who should be afraid of Hunter Cabot.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
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Tusquellas denied the embezzlement claims, saying all sales, including cash, were accounted for and reported as income. Save Live says in its cross-complaint that both parties 'always understood and intended for 369 to transfer' the venue's valuable liquor license, and called Garo and Tusquellas' refusal to do so 'a ruse to get Save Live's money.' Garo and Tusquellas said they never sold, or intended to sell, the venue's liquor license. 'That may have been part of Save Live's secret plan,' said 369 Palm's lawyer, David Sergenian. 'But that was never agreed to.' On July 13, 2022, Garo and Tusquellas' lawsuit says 'Geiger and Fogelman called a meeting of the Board … as a pretense to ambush Tusquellas and Garo with false accusations. Geiger and Fogelman…falsely accus[ed] Tusquellas of embezzling funds from the company to enrich herself.' 'Fogelman aggressively threw a chair to the ground, as he raged,' the suit says. 'Tusquellas and Garo were appalled by Fogelman's shocking behavior and scared for their future, as he was threatening to ruin the business by shutting down The Alibi.' Garo and Tusquellas' suit claims Geiger and Fogelman ordered the venue shut down and that Garo and Tusquellas be removed from operations with their salaries cut off. The bar staff would be fired and 369 Palm's concessionaire agreement canceled, according to the suit. The Alibi closed on July 25, 2022. It never reopened. The situation at the Alibi echoes the tumult surrounding the ownership of the beloved Pioneertown venue Pappy & Harriet's. Starting in 2021, Knitting Factory Chief Executive Morgan Margolis and partners Stephen Hendel and John Chapman battled the venue's co-partners, Joseph Moresco and Lisa Elin, about who controlled the operations at the rustic venue, where acts as big as Paul McCartney and Robert Plant have played in addition to hardscrabble desert locals. Margolis prevailed in late 2024. 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The post-pandemic future for such independent live venues is unsettled. Nonprofits like NIVA were effective advocates for legislation (like the $16.25 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, a federal program that gave money to struggling venues) and fundraising, and concert attendance boomed once venues reopened. But inflation, reduced tourism and a volatile economy threaten to keep fans home. 'What word describes our situation right now? I would offer that one word is 'unknown,' NIVA's executive director Stephen Parker said at the group's 2024 conference. 'Forty years ago, independent stages were the norm, now multinational, publicly traded conglomerates are. Everyone in this room knows that competition is a misnomer and the increasing lack of it is, perhaps, our greatest threat.' Meanwhile, Garo and Tusquellas have returned to L.A., picking up the pieces at an unexpectedly late phase of their careers. Garo will book shows at a new independent Yucca Valley venue, Mojave Gold. Building owner Timberlake said that after months of fighting with Save Live over the venue's debts, he accepted a settlement, and a new restaurant tenant has moved into the Alibi. 'I didn't have the financial capability of fighting someone like Save Live,' he said. 'It was just so unnecessarily negative.' No matter how the August trial ends, Garo and Tusquellas are facing the same headwinds as the rest of the live industry. Only now, they are truly on their own. 'I have lots of ideas,' Garo said. 'But that's all kind of locked up until we get this resolved. I don't want this to be my final chapter.'
