For the role of the iconic, proper, peculiar and enigmatic nanny Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins Returns, the filmmakers had only one person in mind: Emily Blunt.
“Emily is a brilliant actress who is funny, warm, quick-witted and deeply-feeling. She can also really sing and dance,” says the film’s director, Rob Marshall, who had worked with Blunt on Into the Woods. “I get what she does, I get her humor…we’re very simpatico. She created her own version of the character in a very distinctive and special way, which focused more on the eccentric Mary Poppins from the books. I don’t know who else could have played the role besides her, to be quite honest.”
