Even if you’ve never seen or read Mary Poppins, you know Mary Poppins (unless you’re Yondu). The magical nanny famously came to the screen back in 1964 played by Julie Andrews and co-starring Dick Van Dyke as Bert, the lovable chimney sweep. Mary Poppins arrived to help the Banks family, and that’s also what brings her back in Rob Marshall’s upcoming sequel, Mary Poppins Returns. The Banks children have grown up and had children of their own, but Mary Poppins is the same unforgettable character, albeit played by Emily Blunt this time around. Through her stern-yet-kind demeanor and ability to bring magic with her wherever she goes, Mary Poppins must once again bring some light back into the world of the Banks family.
In April 2017, a group of movie reporters and I visited the set of Mary Poppins Returns in London. While we were there, we spoke to Emily Blunt, co-star Lin-Manuel Miranda, producer Marc Platt, and production designer John Myhre. Here are 53 things we learned during our visit to the set. Also, click here to see the new trailer.
Introduction
- The movie takes place during the Depression Era. During our visit, our holding room was filled with concept art, costumes, and props while music from the movie played over the speakers.
- Everything had vivid, bright colors that felt like a throwback to the vibrant 1964 movie.
- Songs in the new movie include “Trip a Little Light Fantastic”, “Turning Turtle”, “Can You Imagine That”, “The Place Where Lost Things Go”, “Nowhere to Go but Up”, “Under the Lovely London Son”, “The Roual Doulton Music Hall”, and “A Cover Is Not the Book”.
- They’ll be melding real locations with fantastical elements.
- There will be animated animals, but it will be an updated 2D animation rather than a 3D CGI blend. The idea is to evoke the blend of live actors with animated animals, but up the ante by being able to move in a 3D space.
- Michael Banks’ (Ben Whishaw) children are Annabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh), and Georgie (Joel Dawson).
- Additionally, Dick Van Dyke is returning to play Mr. Dawes Jr., the son of his Mr. Dawes Sr., his other character from Mary Poppins. Mr. Dawes in the Chairman of the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank.
- Angela Lansbury is also on board to play “The Balloon Lady”.
Stage Tour
- We head to H Stage where we see the top of Big Ben under construction. It’s surrounded by blue screen and we’re told that it’s for a scene that’s near the end of the movie.
- The face of Big Ben is to scale with the real clock.
- We then move over to C Stage to see Topsy’s Upside Down Room, which is one of the coolest sets I’ve ever been on. The name of the set is not misleading as everything that should be on the ground is on the ceiling and everything that should be on the ceiling is on the ground.
- They drew the design right side up and then flipped it.
- Topsy is Mary Poppins’ cousin and played by Meryl Streep.
- The room is full of delightful knickknacks and an incredible level of detail plus major elements like rugs on the ceiling and a chandelier on the floor.
- It almost feels like an upside-down antique shop, but some of the stuff is broken or torn, which creates the feeling that someone really lives here.
- Then we move over to Stage D to check out the upstairs of the Banks’ house.
- There’s a nursery, era-appropriate wooden toys, Mary Poppins’ bedroom, which will have more added and be tidier at a later date.
- There’s a matte painting outside the window to provide the exterior rather than blue screen. We then return back to the main holding area for interviews, starting with producer Marc Platt.
Producer Marc Platt
- Reveals that they’re capitalizing on the other books of Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers.
- The film is specifically set in 1934-35, which is 25 years after the original.
- Growing up, composer Marc Shaiman (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut) was influenced by the Sherman Brothers, who wrote the music for the original Mary Poppins.
- Platt says they wanted to retain the “warmth and comfort of the original character” and that Emily Blunt was their top choice for Mary.
- They wanted to nod to the original, but move it forward into contemporary storytelling.
- Jack, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is a protégé of Bert, and he’s a lamplighter. And yes, Miranda gets to do a little rap.
- Colin Firth plays the film’s antagonist, the head of the bank that’s trying to take the Banks’ house.
- The magic of Mary Poppins has dimmed in the memories of Michael and his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer).
- The reason Mary has remained the same age is because she lives outside of time.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
- He jokes that the big difference from doing a stage musical and a movie musical is that when you do a movie musical, you finish the number and they applaud in a year and a half.
- The original Mary Poppins was in regular rotation in his house, and they would always have to turn it off at “Feed the Birds” because he would burst into tears.
- He was first approached about the role while he was still doing Hamilton.
- He sees it at his the job of his character, Jack, to tell the stories, and he’s aware of Mary Poppins because he was a protégé of Bert from the first movie.
- He thinks director Rob Marshall is the best at making movie musicals, and that Chicago is the best adaptation of a stage musical.
- He has no jealousy of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman writing the score because their styles are so different from his. He adds that their score feels like a “love letter” to the original movie’s music.
- He got a scene with Dick Van Dyke, it was a “joyous two days” adding “I aspire to having that much energy in my life, someday, much less at 91.”
Production Designer John Myhre
- They wanted the Banks’ home to look a little bit more relatable to modern audiences rather than a stately mansion.
- They also wanted to shoot a lot of exteriors on location, so that the film could function as a love-letter of sorts to London.
- The movie begins by going through a series of real locations before coming to the Banks’ home on Cherry Tree Lane.
- The movie starts in the winter, and then after all of the Mary Poppins magic, its springtime, “So we needed a street that could look like this illustration here with all the bare trees and kind of grey and then magically, suddenly burst out in cherry blossom. So we built trees that were 30 ft tall that could one day be winter trees and then over the course of a two-week period where we pulled all the limbs out and put in new limbs, 900,000-1 million cherry blossoms had to be put on by hand, so that was the reason we ended up using this as something that we built here on the stage. Most of the other streets, almost all the other streets are going to be real.”
- Since the bank trying to repo the Banks’ house is the villain, they needed a villainous “bank” at went to the Royal Exchange in London which made them say “that building is the baddie of the film.”
- Originally it was pitched that Topsy’s home should be CG, but Rob Marshall insisted that they build it for real.
- He had longer than he ever had for a prep on the movie; he started in April 2016 and worked for three months in Los Angeles before coming over to London in August.
Emily Blunt
- Blunt found Mary Poppins incredibly comforting as a child. Playing the charcter now is a surreal experience.
- She hasn’t watched the original since she was a child because “no one is going to outdo Julie Andrews.”
- She says Rob Marshall makes you feel like you can do anything, but also he “expects a lot of you and that comes from singing, the acting, the dancing, because he doesn't miss anything.”
- There’s less pressure here than in something like Into the Woods because she’s the first person to ever sing these songs rather than following in someone else’s footsteps.
Filming
- We head over to see the filming on the musical number “Trip a Little Light Fantastic”.
- The lamplighters are the chorus dancers.
- Even though director Rob Marshall has the advantage of close up and camera angles, the dancers are still making big movements. They’re also using the street lamps as part of their choreography.
- The choreography is incredibly impressive as the dancers move and leap using the streetlamps.
- The lighting is equally impressive as it’s both detailed and helps provide more texture to the scene.
- Rob Marshall is directing the rehearsal and fine-tuning the movements.
- I don’t know how the final scene will turn out, but on set, it was one of the best things I’ve seen on a set visit. It’s like having a front-row seat for a musical production and you can see them using the full set to their advantage. The level of talent to do these dance moves is astounding, and I hope that Marshall is able to capture the energy on set and bring it to the screen.
- As for the song itself, it definitely evokes the work of the Sherman Brothers with its energetic tones. However, the dancing is more hip-hop inspired, thus again brining it back around to the edict of making a nod to the original by trying to make it slightly more contemporary.
Final Thoughts
As a big fan of Rob Marshall’s Oscar-winning musical Chicago, he definitely seems at home here on Mary Poppins Returns. While the original Mary Poppins is a classic, no one is trying to throw it out or drastically reinvent it. No one we talked to is trying to get away from what we love about Mary Poppins. Instead, they’re attempting the difficult balance of respecting what worked about the original while giving the sequel its own flavor that will fit with what contemporary audiences expect. Despite the success of La La Land and The Greatest Showman, musicals are still tough sells, but based on what I saw, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mary Poppins Returns ends up being the big hit of the holiday season.
Mary Poppins Returns opens December 19th.