So far, there have been two films with the talking Paddington – fans are currently waiting for a third part of the series, in which the computer-animated bear walks through real worlds. You can pass the time with the work of Jason Chou: The 27-year-old student at a visual effects college in Los Angeles mounts Paddington in screenshots of numerous films and series – and publishes them on his social media profiles on X and on Instagram.

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Paddington fan Jason Chou: "The strength to be polite and friendly gets him through everything"

Photograph:

Elizabeth Lippman / The New York Times / Redux / laif

In Chou's work, Paddington suddenly finds himself alongside Anthony Hopkins , Tom Hanks or Robert De Niro . In »Interstellar«, he trudges through a water world in a space suit or appears on a desert planet alongside Jedi Master Yoda. He attends Thanksgiving feasts – right at the tables of The Peanuts, The Sopranos and The Simpsons, that's how popular he is. He also sits at a table with Alf or lives alone at Kevin's house. He is also part of a dystopian London in »28 Days Later«.

Since March 2021, Chou has been creating a Paddington post every day. On Sunday, his thousandth picture with the bear appeared. Chou's promise to his fans: "I'm going to photoshop Paddington in a movie, game, or TV show until I forget."

It's hard to "let people down"

Why would someone do this? According to the New York Times, Jason Chou explained his passion by saying that he feels like some people are waiting for it every day. And it's hard to let them down." In fact, he wouldn't do more than put Paddington in a scene. That's basically the whole creative process.

But how did it start? Where does the passion for the topic come from? According to the »New York Times«, it basically started in childhood: with watching the »Star Wars« movies. This alone sparked Chou's obsession with film animation – and also influenced his decision to study this subject. One day in the winter of 2018, he fled from a crowded highway to a cinema where »Paddington 2« was being shown – and since then he has been a big fan of the stuffed animal bear: "No matter how many obstacles you put in his way, the strength to be polite and friendly gets him through everything," he says of the friendly animal.

It's easy to explain why he started assembling Paddington in film scenes in 2021: Corona is to blame - it was the time when a lot of people were looking for unusual hobbies. Chou banished boredom during the pandemic, as he told the newspaper, on an Internet forum and photoshopped a giant Paddington into a scene from "Godzilla vs. Kong." Because he could. And just had nothing else to do. "It was kind of light and fun content to cheer people up."

In the meantime, the master has also become unfaithful to his own motto – but not to the extent that he forgot to work for a day. Rather, it's about his announcement that he would "photoshop Paddington into a movie, a game, or a TV show" every day: On day 963, he didn't do just that, but chose an album cover. But for Taylor Swift you make an exception.

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