VAN DYKE IN MARY POPPINS SEQUEL
DICK Van Dyke says he will appear in Mary Poppins Returns, a sequel to the 1964 film in which he co-starred with Julie Andrews, as part of a high-powered cast that includes Emily Blunt and LinManuel Miranda.
The new musical, directed by Rob Marshall, is scheduled to be released on Christmas Day next year. Blunt will play Mary Poppins, a role that Andrews portrayed in the first film.
“This one supposedly takes place 20 years later and the children are all grown up,” Van Dyke told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s a great cast: Meryl Streep, Angela Lansbury and that guy from Hamilton,” a reference to Miranda, who will play a lamplighter named Jack, according to media reports.
Van Dyke, 91, will not revisit his character, Bert, the chimney sweep with a cockneyish accent who joined Poppins, a magical nanny who flew under the power of her umbrella, and her two young charges on a romp through Edwardian London. Instead, he told Entertainment Tonight he will portray the son of a greedy banker who employed the childrens’ father. (Van Dyke, under heavy make-up, also played the elderly banker.)
“Well, I’ve got to be a part of it,” he said, adding that he would travel to London to film the movie. “I’ll just have the one scene, and a little song and dance in it.”
Mary Poppins Returns, which is mining the book series by P.L. Travers for plot inspiration, has drawn criticism from some fans of the original film. But Andrews, 81, who won an Academy Award for her acting in the 1964 movie, has reportedly given her blessing to the sequel.
MALIGNED ACCENT
Appearing in Mary Poppins Returns is, perhaps, a chance for Van Dyke to atone for the sins of his much-maligned accent in the original, the sound of which is something quite atrocious, many Britons have noted. He has for years faced criticism for the dialect, which isn’t quite English and isn’t quite American.
“Someone should have told me I needed to work on my cockney accent,” he told The Guardian. “Nearly everyone in the Mary Poppins cast was a Brit but no one said anything.”
He added: “Years later, I asked Andrews: “Why didn’t you tell me?” She said it was because I was working so hard.”
For his role, Miranda has promised to deliver an accent even less accurate than the one that Van Dyke offered.
“I intend to represent a corner of London with my accent that has not yet been invented,” he was quoted as saying in an interview with USA Today. “I’m going to have the worst accent in the history of English accents — I’m going to sound like I’m from another planet.”
Van Dyke’s interview with The Hollywood Reporter was part of a feature called Creative Until You Die, focusing on the careers of actors who are working into their 90s and beyond.
Asked if he would ever retire, Van Dyke, who has appeared in the Night At The Museum films over the past decade and continues to perform with a barbershop quartet, said absolutely not: “No, I think it’s the worst thing you can do.”