With an Artist’s Help, Paddington Can Go Anywhere

Paddington is the busiest bear in Hollywood.

While fans wait another year for the third installment of his film franchise, Paddington has found time for roles opposite Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro. He celebrated a goal with Ted Lasso, slipped on a spacesuit for “Interstellar” and appeared onstage with David Byrne. He devoured spicy wings on “Hot Ones,” cracked open a children’s book with LeVar Burton on “Reading Rainbow” and recently joined Thanksgiving feasts with characters from “Peanuts,” “The Sopranos” and “The Simpsons.”

It is a daunting schedule made possible by the hard work and creativity of Jason Chou, a self-described Paddington enthusiast, who has spent nearly three years harnessing the magic of Photoshop to teleport the marmalade-loving, escapade-seeking, hard-staring bear into scenes from popular films and television shows.

“At this point, I feel like some people anticipate it every day,” said Mr. Chou, 27, a student at Gnomon, a visual effects school in Los Angeles, “and it’s hard to let them down.”

Mr. Chou, who has created a Paddington-related post every day since March 2021, is nearing a milestone: his 1,000th post, which, barring a Paddington-esque misadventure, will go live on Sunday. (The posts often appear after midnight on the East Coast.) Mr. Chou’s work lives on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he has more than 340,000 followers under his handle, @jaythechou, and where he has pledged to “Photoshop Paddington into a movie, game, or TV show until I forget.”