Hamilton Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda Discusses Mary Poppins Returns

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Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator of Broadway phenomenon Hamilton, was a guest on Thursday’s episode of Good Morning America, and during the interview, he was asked about a few of his upcoming projects, with one of them being Mary Poppins Returns.

Miranda, who will spend all of next year in London filming Mary Poppins Returns, will play a street lamplighter named Jack and says his character is positioned in the film much of the same way Dick Van Dyke’s Bert was in Disney’s 1964 classic, Mary Poppins.

“This takes place about 20 years after the original Mary Poppins film took place,” he shared with the GMA hosts. “But I get to be around for the adventures with Mary and the kids and sing and dance and do all the fun things. It’s a new story. There are about eight Mary Poppins books, so what the creative team has done is sort of taken some of the adventures from those. Michael and Jane Banks have grown up, so this has to do with their kids.”

Golden Globe Award winner Emily Blunt (Into the Woods) has been cast as Mary Poppins and Emmy, GRAMMY, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton, In the Heights) will play a new character, a street lamplighter named Jack. Drawing from the wealth of material in P.L. Travers’ seven additional novels, the story will take place in Depression-era London (when the books were originally written) and follows a now-grown Jane and Michael Banks, who, along with Michael’s three children, are visited by the enigmatic Mary Poppins following a personal loss. Through her unique magical skills, and with the aid of her friend Jack, she helps the family rediscover the joy and wonder missing in their lives.

The film will be directed by Oscar nominee, Emmy and DGA Award winner Rob Marshall and produced by Marshall, Emmy winner and Golden Globe nominee John DeLuca and Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Marc Platt. The screenplay will be written by Oscar nominee David Magee based on The Mary Poppins Stories by P.L. Travers, with Oscar nominee and Tony Award winner Marc Shaiman composing an all-new score and Shaiman and Emmy nominee and Tony Award winner Scott Wittman writing original songs.

(via HH)

Mary Poppins Returns will be released on December 25, 2018.