Michael Rooker Proves He’s Mary Poppins With Dick Van Dyke

Michael Rooker has steadily appeared in movies and television since 1986, but these days he’s best known for his time as Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead and as Ravager leader Yondu in Marvel Studios’ blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. It was there, during the climactic final moments of this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, that a meme was born: while floating down from the sky, the blue-skinned space rogue proudly declared, “I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!”

The internet took off running with the gag, creating memes and fan art of the popular line, even launching a petition for Rooker to make a cameo appearance in the magical nanny’s big screen sequel, Mary Poppins Returns. Rooker represents with a Mary Poppins phone case, and posed alongside Mary Poppins at Disneyland earlier this summer.

And now Rooker’s Twitter account has shared Rooker pictured with legendary actor Dick Van Dyke, who co-starred in Walt Disney’s original 1964 Mary Poppins as Bert the chimney sweep. Van Dyke and Rooker both appeared today at Salt Lake Comic Con, where Rooker fielded questions from fans in a lengthy Q&A session.

“You don’t know which line it’s going to be, honestly,” Rooker told ComicBook.com when asked if the now iconic line was expected to breach the cultural zeitgeist the way it has. “You just do the movie and all the sudden, you know it when it happens. But you don’t know it reading the script… Because you get the same reaction. You’ve got about 100, like 55 people, sometimes more crew people, other actors, director, producers, all the people that end up actually making the movie. I’m just a tiny little piece of it. And so when they react to something you say, and you’re kind of like ‘yeah, we nailed that.’”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is now available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray and Dick Van Dyke will appear as Mr. Dawes Jr. in Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns, which will star Emily Blunt in the titular role alongside a cast that includes Lin-Manuel Miranda, Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury, Julie Walters, and Meryl Streep. The musical — which very well could include a cameo by Rooker — opens Christmas 2018.

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