MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN
GETTING AN ENTIRE CAST BACK TOGETHER FOR a sequel is always a challenge. In the case of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the follow-up to 2008’s blockbuster musical starring Meryl Streep, booze helped. “It took a while to work out what it was going to be,” says producer Judy Craymer of the film’s plot. “There were all kinds of chats and journeys and airfares and drinks. Meryl is partial to a martini, of which I promised many.”
Based on the enormously popular stage musical featuring a score composed entirely of songs by the Swedish pop group ABBA, the original film focused on Greek-island hotel owner Donna (Streep) dealing with the arrival of three ex-boyfriends—sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård)— whom her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), had invited to her wedding to determine which one was her biological father. Craymer, who also produced the theatrical show, says it took 10 years to figure out the story and the songs that would be used this time around.
Written and directed by Ol Parker ( The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), the sequel begins with Sophie living on the island and renovating her mother’s hotel. “It’s like her pride and joy,” says Seyfried. “It’s everything her mother wanted and everything’s going wrong.” As opening day approaches, her mum’s besties, Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters), return to the island to support her with tales of how Donna came to live in Greece, how she met Sophie’s three “dads,” how she opened the hotel, and where she found her prized overalls.
The film flashes back and forth between present day and a 22-year-old Donna ( Baby Driver’s Lily James) graduating from university. An unabashed Mamma Mia! fan, James auditioned by singing “I Have a Dream” and the title track. “I went off to the Glastonbury Festival and screamed and danced so hard that I lost my voice, and the following Monday the producers were like, ‘You’ve got Mamma Mia! You’re going to be recording songs from ABBA.’ I was like, ‘I can’t speak!’ ” To channel Streep, James watched the original over and over. Says the young actress, “I can quote every single sentence of that film down to, like, an eyebrow raise.”
While Again features several ABBA songs not in the original, including “When I Kissed the Teacher”, the movie revisits some of the core hits, like “Dancing Queen”. That number has been expanded into a massive production involving hundreds of dancing extras on boats. “It was epic and ambitious—it’s kind of Dunkirk, really,” says Craymer. Adds Seyfried, “At one point the director and the crew were on three different boats controlling a flotilla of other boats. We all had goosebumps. Shooting 10 years later on this amazing island with the same cast, it was a moment. That f--king song is a moment!”
So where is current Donna in all this dancing merriment? We can’t say exactly, but Streep definitely appears in the film. “She has a very impactful moment with an amazing song,” teases Craymer. “You feel her presence, and her moment in the film is just such a celebration of motherhood.” To that end, the film also introduces us to Donna’s mother—and Sophie’s grandmother—ruby, played by Cher. The icon was a fan of the stage musical and was the filmmaker’s ideal choice to play Donna’s superstar-musician mama. “Donna always talked about a mother, and we kind of felt it was going to be somebody that’s quite mighty,” says Craymer. “She was the dream for all of us. She is rock-chick royalty.” Adds Seyfried, “When Ol told me that Cher was going to be in it, I teared up. I didn’t think it could get better.” The legend drew quite a crowd on her shooting days. Remembers Craymer: “There was a couple of days when they were all there—meryl, Pierce, Colin, and Cher! Colin had his parents there, who apparently had never visited one of his sets, and Pierce had his mother there. It was like our own rock concert, really. And everyone was completely in awe of Cher.” Talk about something in the air that night.