Emily Blunt has finished filming sequel to classic movie

After one of the longest ever gaps between a film and its sequel Disney are finally going to release a new Mary Poppins film this year and the titular role is to be played by a Roehampton native.

Emily Blunt has finished filming for Mary Poppins returns in which she takes over the character immortalised by Julie Andrews in the 1964 original. The film will also feature Ben Whishaw, Colin Firth and Meryl Strep with Dick van Dyke also making a cameo appearance.

Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins. Picture: Disney

The 34-year-old actor, who is the mother of two children, was born and brought up in Roehampton with her two sisters and one brother. Her father, is a lawyer and her mother, who used to be a theatre actress works as a teacher. Her older sister Felicity is married to Stanley Tucci who she appeared with in The Devil Wears Prada, her younger sister Susannah is a vet and her brother Sebastian is an actor and writer. She was all set for university when an agent spotted her at the Edinburgh Festival and her course was set for acting something she had only taken up as therapy for a childhood stutter. In the event she has had major roles in a wide range of films as diverse as a fashion assistant in the The Devil Wears Prada, a super soldier in sci-fi flick The Edge of Tomorrow and a baker’s wife in Into The Woods.

She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband John Krasinki who is best known for playing the Martin Freeman role in the American version of The Office.

She had some reservations about playing Mary Poppins after Julie Andrews had made the role her own saying that she dreading succeeding “an iconic person playing an iconic character.” In a recent interview with Vanity Fair magazine she said, “No one can out-Julie Julie Andrews, so I had to do something that felt organic and representative of what I had taken from the books.”

Her interpretation of Mary Poppins is going to be a bit more eccentric with the character partly based on Rosalind Russell’s portrayal of a fast-talking reporter in the 1940’s classic comedy, His Girl Friday.

The new film is set 25 years after the original with Mary returning to Cherry Tree Lane to help the family who have recently suffered a bereavement with Ben Whishaw playing a grown up Michael from the original film who is now a father himself. Having shown her singing ability in Into The Woods Emily has had a chance to demonstrate her dancing talent in some of the big set piece numbers in the film.

Julie Andrews was invited to perform a cameo but declined saying, “This is Emily’s show and I don’t want to step on it in any way. I want her to run with it.” Emily was the directors first and only choice for the role for which she was cast back in 2016.

One of Emily’s main concerns is how her three-year-old daughter Hazel will react to the film given that she is besotted with the original. She dreads Hazel rejecting her version and refusing to accept that anybody else other than Julie Andrews could be the real deal.

The film is due to be released on Christmas Day this year.

January 5, 2018