Lin-Manuel Miranda opens up about Mary Poppins Returns

Lin-Manuel Miranda is opening up about the Mary Poppins sequel Mary Poppins Returns and working with legend Dick Van Dyke.

American treasure Lin-Manuel Miranda is opening up about his role in the Mary Poppins sequel Mary Poppins Returns and it sounds amazing.

I would see anything LMM is involved in. I even sat on the sidewalk all night for Hamilton cancelation tickets. So I was so excited to find out that Miranda was going to be in the Mary Poppins sequel. And Miranda just revealed new details about his role in Mary Poppins Returns to Entertainment Weekly.

Miranda explained that he met with director Rob Marshall and producer John DeLuca between Hamilton performances, who told him, “We’re not asking you to be Dick Van Dyke, but what we know is, it’s Emily Blunt and you, and we want to build it around you guys.” After hearing the pitch and who else was involved, LMM was basically sold. Yeah, me too.

Miranda went on to talk about the magical and fantastical elements in Mary Poppins Returns. And the Mary Poppins sequel will be just as delightful as the original:

"“The magical is commonplace, at least to a couple of people like Mary and Jack, similar to the way it was to Mary and Bert. It’s almost like, ‘Well, yeah, we’ll just jump into the painting and spend the day in the painting, because why wouldn’t we do that?’ They’ll say, ‘Come on, we have a very busy day,’ and that busy day involves dancing with penguins and flying. That’s the thrill of it.”"

Mary Poppins Returns is set 25 years after the original. Mary Poppins comes back to London and the Banks family after they suffer a personal tragedy and lose their joy in life.

LMM is playing a jolly streetlamp lighter named Jack, who apprenticed under Dick Van Dyke’s Bert. And yes, LMM did get to work with Van Dyke, though Van Dyke will be playing Mr. Dawes Jr. in his cameo instead of Bert.

And, according to Miranda, Van Dyke still has it! He was having trouble keeping up with Van Dyke at 91!

And Miranda definitely made the most of his time while filming with such a huge legend like Van Dyke. “Honestly, I just spent the whole time grilling him about Bye Bye Birdie,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

Next: Lin-Manuel Miranda lights up London in new Mary Poppins photos

Mary Poppins Returns is scheduled to premiere on Dec 25, 2018.