As part of my coverage of Mary Poppins Returns red carpet movie premiere in LA, I interviewed Emily Blunt and other cast members. I was excited to be able to talk to Min-Manueal Miranda, the Hamilton mastermind, who plays Jack the Lamplighter.
When Lin-Manuel came in, he seemed to be as excited to see us as we were to see him.
How is it different being in musical theater versus starring in a musical movie production?
You finish the eight minute dance number and you wait a year and a half for applause. But honestly, you’re trying to tell the truth on stage and you’re trying to tell the truth in film. The difference is the energy source. Doing eight shows a week is a yoga. You’re gonna hit the same positions every night but you’re gonna hit ’em differently depending on your energy, the audience, you’re fellow performers. And you have two the next day.
The energy source in making a film is, especially a film like this, today you’re dancing with penguins. Tomorrow you’re singing with Meryl Streep. Friday you’re shutting down Buckingham Palace with 800 bikers. And you’re not coming back. We’re not going back to the penguins next week. You don’t get two shows a day with Meryl Streep tomorrow. So the adrenaline source becomes this is a once-in-a-lifetime moment and you have to be completely present. And so it just shifts from the audience to the sheer one-of-a-kindness of it.
Which scene are you most proud of?
There’s so many scenes I’m proud of. It’s funny. There’s scenes I’m proud of because they’re my own fault. And there’s scenes I’m proud of because they took so much practice and mastery. Tommy Kail, who directed Hamilton, said the he was most moved when he saw me slide down the bannister in Trip A Little Light Fantastic because I’d been doing, that’s the one thing I actually know how to do really well.
And as Tommy Kail put it, “You don’t know how to land a joke or sing a note or grow a beard without practice. But man you were born to slide down banisters.” And then there are moments that represent hours and hours of hard work from the eight minute, continuous dance sequence in Trip A Little Light Fantastic, and Rob ran it as an eight minute dance sequence.
Did you find the costumes comfortable or uncomfortable, especially with dancing in them?
Sandy Powell’s a wizard and she’s sort of a Mary Poppins herself. She looks not of this world. She comes in with this orange hair and these amazing outfits. The next thing you know, you’re wearing an amazing outfit, which is very Poppins-esque. But dancing was always given priority. So even in those hand-painted suits in the Royal Dalton Ball and that is painted, that is like acrylic paint on the suits, there’s give and there’s stretch in the pants so we can sort of do our work.
Do you remember the first time you saw Mary Poppins and what that meant to you?
I remember seeing the first two-thirds of Mary Poppins. We had the V.H.S. cassette and it was, some of you will remember this. You know, they had their own section in the home library because they were fluffy and white, a little bigger than your shelf. And then I remember turning it off during Feed The Birds. Feed The Birds is the most emotionally devastating melody in the history of cinema.
Dick Van Dyke was kind of infamous for the accent and Lin-Manuel says it’s the best accent in the history of cinema.
You were taking on the Bert-esque role. What was that process?
What I realized going in was that no matter what I did, my accent would be scrutinized for the rest of my career if Dick Van Dyke is any indication. But the fun of that is, music is sort of my catalyst for everything. So I just had an amazing dialect coach named Sandra Butterworth, which is a very Poppinsian name in and of itself. And she became my closest friend and ally on set, whispering in my ear between takes.
And also music. She realized that music was my way in. So it was not just listening to music sung in the east end Cockney accent, it was music in the 1930s. Because it’s not just about the part of the world, it’s about the time of the world. It’s about the when as well. So I listened to a lot of Anthony Newley, who was a big sort of music hall star who then also wrote a Broadway musical called Stop the World, I Want To Get Off in the 1960s.
But I listened to a lot of his early stuff and that was my sort of north star for the accent.
Lin-Manuel tell us about the bike he rode which he named Gertie!
Do you normally ride a bike? And were there training wheels on it or was there a green screen?
I called it Gertie because she was not your average bike. This is not your Schwinn 10-speed. This is an old bike with a 20 pound ladder in a basket on your right side. So you’re constantly accounting for that. So I would bike to craft services. I would bike around. I make it, I biked that thing all over Shepperton Studios until it was second nature to me. And then in the sequences where all the kids and Mary Poppins are on the bike, we just had a set of training wheels that we C.G.I.’ed out.
So it’s really me driving those kids on that bike. There’s just a certain limit to how far they can tip over thanks to the training wheels. And those are taken out in post.
How was it to be in the upside down actually with Meryl Streep?
Every day with Meryl Streep feels like you’re in the upside down. It’s like, how is this my life? How are we on the ceiling? It was a joy. That’s the sequence that I think that I watched the movie, I watch it more closely every time because it’s a triumph of production design, the way every ceiling element becomes a floor element. And then Meryl, you know, I talked to Emily Blunt about this.
You know, she’s done three films with Meryl. She’s gone from being her assistant to being the lead of the movie. It’s been kind of an incredible product. And what Emily told me going in was that like Meryl just kind of stays in the character, but not like method Daniel Day Lewis cobbling shoes. Like she’s just kind of in the spirit of it. And I felt so lucky that she was in the spirit of a character that’s so mischievous and flirty and fun.
Lin-Manuel tells us a story about Meryl Streep
“Hey kids, you wanna know how to do a pratfall?” And she went… like from standing to face down. Everyone runs in like, Meryl Streep has died. And she gets up, she goes like this and she goes, “I learned that at Yale School of Drama.” And it was just to show off for the kids. And so I was very grateful that I got to play with that version of Meryl Streep.
Mary Poppins Returns opens in theaters on December 19th
Grab your tickets today here!
You can also take home your favorite characters for the kids (or yourself) with Funko from Entertainment Earth.
- For more details visit: Mary Poppins
- Pick up one of four fun Funko Pop collectible figures.
