Lin-Manuel Miranda opens up about Mary Poppins sequel character

Broadway sensation Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new Mary Poppins Returns character is an apprentice to Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep Bert from the original movie musical.
The Hamilton creator and former star has opened up about his exciting new film project, which features Emily Blunt as the magical nanny.
“It’s a straight up sequel,” he tells Variety. “Michael and Jane Banks have grown up, and they find themselves in their own spot, and Mary Poppins comes back to take care of Michael’s kids.
“I play a lamplighter named Jack who sort of grew up apprenticing to Bert. So I know if Mary Poppins shows up, it’s gonna get awesome. I perform that function in the movie, of saying, ‘Y’all don’t know about Mary Poppins. When Mary’s around, cool s**t happens’.”
In the original 1964 Disney film Julie Andrews played Poppins, who arrives from the skies to take the role of nanny to the Banks family’s sheltered and spoiled kids.
“That movie is everyone’s childhood,” Miranda adds. “Mine too. Although I never got through ‘Tuppence’ (the film’s song Feed the Birds), because that lady made me so sad that I would burst into tears. It took me a long time to actually see the end of the movie.”
Starring in a Disney film is a full-circle moment for the actor, who was inspired to join the theatre after watching the studio’s animated movies in the 1980s and ’90s.
“I feel really lucky that I was a kid when they went on that run of animated musicals, starting with The Little Mermaid,” he explains. “Not just animated movies, animated musicals.
“I have never been more transported in my life than when (The Little Mermaid tune) Under the Sea first started when I was nine years old. I said, ‘I cannot believe what is happening to me’, and that feeling of vertigo in a movie theatre… Something I’ve been chasing ever since. To be part of that legacy… It’s very formative to me. I’m thrilled to be a part of that tradition.”