For an actress who’s been in huge films like Notting Hill and massive TV hits like The newsroomyou wouldn’t think Emily Mortimer has anything to feel nervous about.
But the 53-year-old tells 9honey Celebrity she did suffer briefly from some imposter syndrome on the set of her latest movie, Paddington in Peru,
The family film is the third in the series, with British star Sally Hawkins playing Mrs Brown in the first two movies, before Mortimer stepped into the role.
Watch the video above.
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“I had taken the job with extreme excitement and kind of a sense of duty and honor that I had been called to join the Paddington universe,” Mortimer explains to 9honey Celebrity in London.
“But then as it got closer and closer to walking onto the set or into the rehearsal room, I was getting a little bit nervous and feeling like maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it.”
The Mary Poppins Returns The actress says she thinks it would have been “strange” if she hadn’t had any nerves or doubts, but at the end of the day she took a more holistic approach to move past her fears.
“I just think that that heart of Mrs. Brown was so perfectly embodied by Sally, and it was scary for me to try to sort of fill her shoes,” Mortimer recalls.
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“In the end, I decided I just had to not try to do that, I couldn’t possibly emulate her, because I wouldn’t, I would end up falling short.
“So I just decided to just be my own version and comforted myself by thinking, ‘You know, there are going to be many more versions of Mrs. Brown in years to come’, because this is a timeless, universal characters.
“Just like Willy Wonka or Alice in Wonderland, they’re stories and characters for the ages, so there are going to be a lot of people playing them.”
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Mortimer says something else that helped her move past the comparisons was the fact the two child actors – who have grown up playing Mrs Brown’s kids, Judy and Jonathan – had grown into young adults.
Madeleine Harris, now 23 and Samuel Joslin, now 22, are a similar age to the actress’s older son, The Perfect Couple actor Sam Nivola, 21.
Mortimer also has a 12-year-old daughter May Nivola with husband, actor Alessandro Nivola, and she too has joined the family business, having starred in the movie white noise,
“I’ve got two children of around that same age myself and so I immediately, really, I went straight in and started asking them about how to deal with my own children, and getting advice from Sam and Maddie and that was a great leveller. .
“And then (Hugh Bonneville) was, right from the get-go, just so easy and nice to be married to and I really enjoyed that. So it was all alright.”
And it seems Harris agrees, saying the pair bonded immediately.
“There’s no one better to have joined us and been an addition into the Paddington family,” Harris tells 9honey Celebrity.
“Me and Emily spent a few hours together in rehearsals, got to know each other, found so much common ground, and it then made it so much easier.
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“So when we’re on set, we can really sort of bring that (mother-daughter) relationship to life.
Actor Hugh Bonneville has played patriarch Mr Brown from the start of the current movie franchise but the pair have known each other for years.
Although, while they are both credited on rom-com Notting Hillthey don’t remember working together on the film.
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“Emily and I have been debating this, we can’t quite remember working together on Notting Hill (but) we must have,” Bonneville admits to 9honey Celebrity.
Mortimer laughs and adds, “Somebody must watch it again and tell us, are we in the same scene? Because neither of us have any recollection.”
Another former co-star sharing the screen with Bonneville again is actress Olivia Colman – the pair worked together on British mockumentary Twenty Twelve,
The Oscar winner stars as the hilarious Mother Superiors, who runs a facility in Peru, where Paddington’s beloved Aunt Lucy lives and writes to the bear to come and visit his aging family.
It leads the whole Brown family on an adventure as they head back to Paddington’s country of birth.
Paddington in Peru is out in cinemas across Australia on New Year’s Day.
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