Pingu (fanon biography)

Paul Nathan Guy "Pingu" Winters OA MP*AC (born 6 July 1980) is a Swiss and British actor, musician, producer, marine biologist, and philanthropist. He is known for playing flexible and mischievous characters in his acting roles, and for his introspective themes and storytelling in his music. Winters is the recipient for numerous accolades, including the AntScreen Award, the AntMusic Award, and the BAFTA Award. His marine biology work with the Southern Institute of Biology has granted him the honorary title "Plinguton".

Born in Zürich, Switzerland, he was partly raised in Hammersmith, London, where Winters learned to act from his attending of theatres and plays and from his home movies that his parents recorded. After being scouted by a Swiss talent agent, Winters moved to Russikon and began his career as a child actor by starring in Pingu as the titular character. His friendship with Robby Brighton remains one of the most robust cartoon friendships in history. His work in Pingu granted him a BAFTA Award nomination, and went on to achieve massive success around the world.

Coming from a musical family, his music career began with the release of Pingu Dance and continued on with the releases of the singles Pingu Rap and Seeds of Happiness (1993), which were released in Japan, and the release of Pingu Hits (1994) in Germany. While as a student in Coventry University, he released his EP Live at the Penguin Cafe in London (1998), recorded at the venue of the same name. A year later in 1999, he formed Icebreakers, who were a musical band comprising of his friends. In their first incarnation, they released two albums and performed live before he graduated from Coventry University and got drafted into the Swiss military in 2001.

In 2003, he was granted military leave a year after HIT Entertainment bought the rights to the show and subsequently moved to London to film the remaining series and to resume Icebreakers as a live band, with his sister Mary joining in the process. They released four more albums before disbanding in 2006, around the same time the reboot got cancelled. His songs include "Fun and Games", "Persimmon Purposes", "Apricot Love", and "As It Is". He began to take up a solo career, and pursued voice acting while habitually making on-screen appearances in promotional work and in supporting roles. His voice acting roles include Dru Livingstone in HollyWorld, Jed in Rich Cottage, and Lloyd Sackman in VC. He returned to in-person acting in 2017 after reprising his former role in Pingu in the City, a reboot based on the original series.

Along with his family and friends, Winters continues to be revered as a Swiss cultural export and icon. He was honored with a series of stamps in 1999, and was ordered the Order of Antarctica in the 2015 Honours and the Order of the Merit of Penguins in the 2018 Lineup for his contributions to culture and nature conservation.

Early life
Winters was born on 6 July 1980 at the Balgrist University Hospital (German: Universitätsklinik Balgrist) in Zürich, Switzerland. The first of two children, his father, Paul Winters, is a British-American-Swiss former musician who now works as a courier, while his mother, Polly Margaret (née Mead), is a British musician who played saxophone in multiple bands. From his father's side, he is the grandson of Paul A. Henry (birth name: Paul Anthony Winters), a musician, engineer, and former weightlifter. Both of his parents were planning to reside in Russikon before he was born, but his parents drove to the nearby city of Zurich for a holiday, where he was born. Winters was raised in a irreligious household, though he and his family still celebrated traditions like Christmas.

Winters's great-grandfather, Henry Bay Winters (born Helmut Bay Winters), married into the prestigious Tinsley family; his wife, Camellia, was the daughter of Arnold French Tinsley and the granddaughter of Walter John Tinsley, and Rachel Leah Gruber, who came from a modest German family. Both sides of Winters's family climbed up the social ladder, as Walter came from a working-class household and worked in factories before gaining prominence as a merchant for prestige businesses and later documented his travels in a novel known as The Tinsley Travelogue after being inspired by Ibn Battuta's The Rihla, while Henry worked as a baker prior to his marriage. On his mother's side, his grandfather John Mead was offered an opportunity to work at an office in Ipswich after hopping through many factory jobs around England.

His paternal grandfather, Paul A. Henry, rose to fame after participating in weightlifting competitions, culminating in him taking home gold and silver medals for weightlifting at the 1948, 1954, 1964, and 1965 Sana Anima Games. He later retired from weightlifting, owing to his belief that his physical peak has already been reached and that he's free to pursue other interests, including his already burgeoning music career. Winters's father, Paul Winters, was successful in his own right, gaining popularity as a vocalist for rock band Leather House, and divulged in multiple acting roles, with his most notable role being Paul Hornsby from the primetime television series Only One You. He later retired from show business to raise his family, only returning at the behest of Pingu.

A month after he was born, the family moved to Hammersmith, London. Winters was an active child growing up, often visiting his friends' houses and homes, and loved playing sports, most particularly ice hockey. He has been described as strong-willed by peers, but is often prone to misbehaving. He has been described as "almost the polar opposite of his younger sister Mary, who is quite shy and reserved." Winters credited his earthly attitude to his relatives, who instilled respect by teaching him about gratitude. They took him to homeless shelters, volunteered in soup kitchens, and donated to charities, a practice he and his family continues to do.

Winters attended the Outdoors School for Excelling Penguins in Zurich, Switzerland, which functioned as a mixed primary-secondary school. His classmates were Attin Page, Terry Goldberg, Peter Reginald, and school sweetheart Gabby Pascal. Winters studied in Coventry University, majoring in music, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and marine biology. He later graduated in 2001.

Swiss Pingu: 1990–2000
Winters was inspired by frequenting movie theatres and plays as a child, due to his parents' leniency on television and video games. Although he was interested by theatre as a child, he was not particularly interested in acting; "I wanted to become a marine biologist, because I didn't consider acting to be a 'true profession'. As I grew up, I started to think more about acting, and I thought about it even more when I was in school." Learning from his experiences of watching other people and his home movies, he and his family took a holiday to Zürich, and auditioned for a supporting role as Hugo in an unnamed pilot. After a series of auditions, he found a letter from the acting company; the letter congratulated the family on being hired for the job. After Winters' parents read the letter to him, he became shocked and fainted from the news. The studio then began to record a pilot in 1986, which was not leaked until the 2010s. The role, which was previously tested on another actor 6 years earlier, was given to Winters. When asked to name the character, he chose Pingu as his parents called him by that name. Later in his career, he was asked whether he preferred to be called "Pingu" or "Pingu Paul", he quipped, "any nickname is fine. Just any nickname apart from really demeaning stuff."

Winters's family began to buy a house near the studio in Russikon, and began to divide his time between school on weekdays and acting on weekends; his parents also set up a schedule for him, and he frequently moved between Whitby and Russikon. "I had a script that gave me the general idea of what I was going to do or say, and it's in this babble that sounds like a real language from a distance. That's what makes this series so endearing... well, besides the slapstick."

Soon after the first episode aired, the show made some revenue, and the company that produced it divided its equal worth amongst themselves and the family. In spite of the show's success, he kept the same schedule even until its final episode in 2006, stating that he "didn't want to fall into the trap of child actors" and "wanting to make sure [Pingu] was well behaved and not be a trainwreck of a person thereafter". After the show ended, the money largely came from re-tapings of the show, and were given some revenue from the distributors.

Hiatus (2001-2003)
TBA!

Voice acting: 2006–2017
Winters shifted his focus to voice acting during this time period. His first voice acting credit was Waldron in the radio drama Manors of Love. He later took up roles in online animation and radio-dramas such as Michael Lighter in Sitting Doing Here, Lazarus Corbel in Mount Westington, Jed in Rich Cottage, Lloyd Sackman in VC, and Dru Livingstone in HollyWorld. Winters loved voice acting as it was more efficient, giving him more time to balance his schedule. He also appreciated how it and "It's all in the voice. You express more out of voice acting, you pretty much have to imagine. And that's what makes it great."

Personal life and relationships
Winters and his family began to reside in Switzerland in 1980 while his mother was pregnant with him. In the set of his show, he became adequate with the writers and producers, and his family approved of Winters taking German and Italian studies with Swiss tutors while filming. He is fluent in Swiss German and English, and demonstrates advanced skills in Italian, along with a conversational level of French.

Winters first met Gabby Pascal after she was casted to play the role of Pingi. Pascal stated that her aunt drove from Geneva to Zürich for a casting call, which is where she met Winters. While filming the episode, they began to form a relationship, and ended up co-habiting at Winters's London house after moving out. Pascal has stated that her reasoning for their long-lasting relationship is independence, as both are in an open relationship and attended different colleges, even rejecting the possibility of marriage. "We'd go crazy", Pascal stated. "But we made things work. We'd send each other postcards and letters as a way to express our relationship, and we might even have a few children. It's true love." In October 2021, the pair announced that they were expecting twins. On 17 May 2022, Pascal gave birth to twins Danielle and Joseph Pascal-Winters.

Winters first befriended Robby Brighton while in London, as they both attended playgroup together. With the permission of the parents and relatives of Brighton and Winters, he took Brighton to audition for the show and ended up getting the part of his sidekick of the same name. Winters still maintains this relationship to this very day, and Brighton has even quipped about Pingu being his potential boyfriend, stating that both are "really close" with each other and that Pascal wouldn't mind them dating each other as they have an open relationship

Winters had a strong friendship with the cast and crew for Pingu, most notably Otmar Gutmann, Erika Brueggemann, and Carlo Bonomi. He described the death of Gutmann as one of his first major losses of his life, something he did not publicly speak about until he went on select interviews for Gutmann'$ 75th Anniversary. He visited Tony Wolf's family after his death to grant his respects and attended his funeral. When Bonomi died, he, along with many other members of the Pingu cast, visited his relatives. After attending his funeral, he placed a bouquet of flowers on his gravestone and a signboard written, "Mille grazie, Carlo."

Residencies
Winters lived with his family until the age of 18. He bought a small house in London and traveled constantly between his house and the studio in Russikon until the series ended in 2000. His conscription to the Swiss Army led to his residing at a dormitory near. Pingu briefly lived in the Henson Gardens in London from 2003 to 2006, before moving back to his house. He moved to Queens, New York City sometime around 2012 and currently lives there with his partner.

Personal interests
Pingu occasionally plays music with his friends and younger sister, often performing gigs at his home in New York City. He is an avid sportsperson, recently taking up association football while living in New York City; his favorite pastimes are curling and hockey.

Awards and honours
On 2015, the 25th anniversary of Pingu, he was awarded the Order of Antarctica and the Order of the Merit of Penguins by the Antarctic Council in the UK.

Discography
Solo
 * Warmth in the Cold (2007)
 * Come in the Cave (2009)
 * Pings (2011)
 * Pro (2013) (with Robby Brighton)
 * En Garde (2015)
 * The Days Go By (2019)
 * High and Low (2021)

Other notes
This is a fanon biography of Pingu, and as such those details are to be taken with a grain of salt. For the official biography of Pingu, go here → Pingu (canon biography)