Following his scene-stealing appearance in the second Paddington movie, many of us went into part three hoping for a cameo from Hugh Grant.

And those of us who stayed until the very end of Paddington In Peru were rewarded with a brief scene featuring Hugh back in character as Phoenix Buchanan.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about how Hugh’s cameo came about, director Dougal Wilson explained: “Everyone kept asking me while we were making Paddington in Peru, ‘Oh, is Hugh Grant in it? Is Hugh Grant in it?’. I was saying, ‘Well, he’s in prison, so how could he be in this anyway?’.

“Then we started thinking while we were developing the script, ‘That is a shame that he’s in prison and we’re in Peru, so it’s quite tricky to involve him in this story’.”

In the end, it was decided that Phoenix’s scene would see him receiving a visit in prison from Paddington and his new friends.

Dougal told Vulture: “[Hugh] was really up for it because he does love the Paddington films, and I think he felt this was a nice way to be involved without having to be in the main story. He’s kind of done that. He did appreciate the joke.”

In fact, Dougal noted that Hugh “appreciated it so much he ended up helping with the dialogue for that scene”.

He specifically noted that the line “red cape, flaxen wig, lights: Phoenix Buchanan is Goldilocks” was “all his idea”.

“And Phoenix wanting to involve the bears in some sort of theatrical performance when he gets out – that was Hugh’s idea. He was really into it,” Dougal added.

In his Entertainment Weekly interview, he recalled that it was also Hugh’s idea to have the character be imminently up for release from prison, which means it’s entirely possible a role in a fourth Paddington film could be in the pipeline.

However, the filmmaker told Vulture that there are “no plans” to make a Paddington 4, at least, not “at the moment” anyway.

Dougal said that Hugh contributed other ideas that didn’t make it into the film, such as Phoenix requesting his “brandy and his hot water bottle” from the prison guards “as he was so disturbed by all the bears and ‘all the beady eyes’ looking at him”.

This isn’t the first time Hugh has contributed his own lines to his scenes, though.

In the lead-up to the release of the new Bridget Jones movie Mad About The Boy, the Bafta winner claimed he also helped work on his character Daniel Cleaver’s dialogue, having made the decision not to appear in the third film of the series back in 2016.