Dick Van Dyke Is Back In ‘Mary Poppins’ Film
LOS ANGELES — When Rob Marshall, the director of the film “Mary Poppins Returns,” realized that Dick Van Dyke was the same age as the grizzled London banker he played in his second role in the original 1964 “Mary Poppins,” Mr. Marshall had an idea: Why not ask Mr. Van Dyke, now 93, to play Mr. Dawes Jr., the banker’s son, for the sequel?
“Mary Poppins Returns,” which opened this month, follows that child-minder ( Emily Blunt in the Julie Andrews part) as she brightens the lives of the Banks family.
Mr. Marshall said Mr. Van Dyke (who also played the chimney sweep Bert in the original) aced his cameo in “two takes, maybe three; he just nailed it.”
Mr. Van Dyke has been practicing since his high school days in Illinois, where he jettisoned plans to join the ministry soon after he discovered drama class. He went on to do it all: He was one-half of a touring mime team, a television announcer, a radio disc jockey. It was the theater director and choreographer Gower Champion who saw potential in Mr. Van Dyke’s rubbery-legged agility and cast him as the lead in a Broadway production of “Bye Bye Birdie.”
“But Mr. Champion, I don’t dance,” Mr. Van Dyke told him.
“We’ll teach you,” Mr. Champion promised. Since then, Mr. Van Dyke hasn’t stopped moving.
Here are excerpts from two interviews. No. I’m always dancing. I work out every day, mostly in the pool. I do a little bit of weight lifting, but at my age, not a lot. I am arthritic. Too many pratfalls. But that wasn’t the problem. hanging up there. It must have been 15 minutes before somebody realized and came and let us down. She’d probably dislike it just as much. [Laughs.] But did you know that Emily Blunt read all the Mary Poppins books? So she gives it a little different approach than Julie did. Emily’s is closer to the book — she’s a little more stern. Miss Travers might have been a little happier with that. Yes, I do. I get a lot of mail from little kids who love Mary Poppins. There’s something timeless about what Walt [Disney] did. I think this movie could have used a little of his influence. I thought there was too much computer anima- tion; sometimes it went on too long and didn’t move the story forward. But I’m hypercritical. [Laughs.] Other than that, I think it’s a great tribute to Walt.