Dick Van Dyke Praises 'MARY POPPINS' Stars Blunt & Miranda: 'I Was Impressed'

In an interview with The New York Post, song and dance man Dick Van Dyke praises the cast and crew of Disney's upcoming MARY POPPINS RETURNS. The actor, who will make a cameo in the highly anticipated film, will be the only original 'POPPINS' cast member making an appearance. (Click here to read why Julie Andrews turned down a role in the film!)

Shares the 91-year-old star, "I just got back from London, filming a cameo in the sequel for the new 'Mary Poppins.' People say sequels don't work, but the people behind it have their hearts in the right place. They insist it is not a sequel, it is an homage."

He goes on to praise the stars of the upcoming project, sharing, "Emily Blunt is a quite good Mary Poppins; she sings well. And they had re-created the original set of Cherry Tree Lane just perfectly that brought back a lot of memories. I was the only original member of the cast who is in it. It's like bookends for me. And Lin-Manuel [Miranda], who plays the lamplighter, dances very well, I was impressed."

Van Dyke, who portrayed the old banker in the original movie, says of his new role, "This time I play his son, who is not a nice guy. I got to jump up on a desk and do a song-and-dance number, and I thoroughly enjoyed it." He adds, "They had a dialectician practically handcuffed to me, to make sure this time the dialect was right. I wasn't a cockney this time, but they still wanted to make sure the accent was right."

He also shares his admiration for the advancement in filming techniques used in today's movies. "You used to have to do a number of takes, but now they use four or five cameras and they get all the angles in one take, which at my age is certainly an advantage."

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Below, watch Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke perform the classic number, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious", from MARY POPPINS:

"Mary Poppins Returns" will be released in U.S. theaters on December 25, 2018. Directed and produced by Rob Marshall, "Mary Poppins Returns" stars Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer and Julie Walters with Colin Firth and Meryl Streep. The film, which introduces three new Banks children, played by Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and newcomer Joel Dawson, also features Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury.

The film is set in 1930s depression-era London (the time period of the original novels) and is drawn from the wealth of material in PL Travers' additional seven books. In the story, Michael (Whishaw) and Jane (Mortimer) are now grown up, with Michael, his three children and their housekeeper, Ellen (Walters), living on Cherry Tree Lane. After Michael suffers a personal loss, the enigmatic nanny Mary Poppins (Blunt) re-enters the lives of the Banks family, and, along with the optimistic street lamplighter Jack (Miranda), uses her unique magical skills to help the family rediscover the joy and wonder missing in their lives. Mary Poppins also introduces the children to a new assortment of colorful and whimsical characters, including her eccentric cousin, Topsy (Streep).

The film is produced by Marshall, John DeLuca and Marc Platt. The screenplay is by David Magee based on The Mary Poppins Stories by PL Travers with Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman writing all new songs and Shaiman composing an original score.

Image: Screengrab