There’s something about Emily
Mary Poppins Returns musical Chicago, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award. ‘‘Bad musicals are when you haven’t earned a song. But in a good musical, you’re unaware that they’re singing.’’
Mary Poppins Returns was the most massive undertaking of his career, Marshall estimated, and that’s coming from a film-maker who also directed a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel.
Making the world of Mary Poppins both familiar and fresh to 2018 audiences began with connecting its threads to the original. A screenplay by David Magee sets Poppins’ return to Cherry Tree Lane two decades after her last visit.
England is suffering under the gloom of the Great Depression, and a now-grown Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) is a recent widower. Even with the help of his activist-unioniser sister, Jane (EmilyMortimer), he struggles to raise his three young children and keep bank lenders (including a villainous Colin Firth) from seizing the family home.
Bringing life and light once again in a time of darkness, Mary Poppins alights on a kite from the sky. And in Blunt’s rendition, she isn’t quite the same Poppins you might remember. Revisiting Travers’ expansive series of books proved crucial for Blunt, since as soon as she signed on to play the legendary role she vowed not to watch the original film again.
‘‘I didn’t want any natural instinct I might have to be diluted by the brilliance of what [Andrews] did,’’ she says.
The Mary Poppins of the books, she found, presented new and different qualities than those seen in the 1964 film.
‘‘There’s an eccentricity and a battiness to her. She’s incredibly vain and rude and funny,’’ Blunt says with a grin, ‘‘and weird, actually. Like this strange, rare bird. But I read the books quite fully, and it became clear to me where I wanted to go with her.’’
The moment when Marshall knew Blunt had her character down pat came on the first day of rehearsal.‘‘You walked in and you were the character,’’ he says, beaming at Blunt. ‘‘It was the beginning of rehearsals, andwe had months to go, and she had already carved her own space from her own imagination and her own sensibility.’’
The two had discussed infusing their Mary Poppinswith tonal influences of the era in which Mary Poppins Returns takes place – specifically, the snappy, sassy clip of Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. ‘‘I wanted her to come in like a tornado,’’ says Blunt.
But it wasn’t just Mary Poppins’ uniquely oblique persona the actress had to find; carrying a bombastic Hollywood throwback musical, she embraced her inner Broadway hoofer ... and vocalist.
‘‘I still love singing in the shower or the car, love it – karaoke, if I’m drunk enough – but I have always, ever since I was a child, found it very nerveracking to sing in front of people,’’ says Blunt, whose karaoke skills have indeed been documented on the internet.
‘‘But I think I amone of those people who, when I amnervous about something, I almost have to go all the way, because it combats the fear.’’
Every musical number in Mary Poppins Returns brings with it a salve of sorts to younger audiences; every song a musical spoonful of sugar delivering coping mechanisms for life in an oft-chaotic contemporary world.
‘‘What I love about Mary Poppins the most is she recognises what people need and she gives it to them,’’ says Blunt, ‘‘but she gives it to them in away that they can go on a voyage of self-discovery.
‘‘She wants zero credit. There’s nothing manipulative about her generosity, because she makes it all about you – and then she leaves.’’
Recognising that such a film might be what audiences need now was somethingMarshall believes got so many talented cast members on board, including Blunt’s Devil Wears Prada and Into the Woods co-star Meryl Streep.
‘‘Meryl said yes within seconds,’’ he said. ‘‘She called the film ‘a gift to the world’. I think ... we were all aware of that.’’
‘‘Among the acrimony and bitterness that is out there right now in the air, I think a film like this could actually be the great unifier, which would be nice, wouldn’t it?’’ adds Blunt. ‘‘As my husband puts it, it’s a joybomb on the soul.’’ – Los Angeles Times Mary Poppins Returns (G) is in cinemas now.