Rob Marshall / "Mary Poppins Returns"

I'm good. I'm good. Thanks, Thanks, I'm good. Long day, huh. You know, it's it's okay though, because it still feels kind of new, you know, we're still yeah, we're just at the beginning and so I mean we just had a fun press conference with the whole cast and our writers and so that was it was just great to see everybody. That's really nice. So you know that that's the that's that's sort of like the plus side of things.

You know, you know you're doing this, but you get to see all those people again that you had, you know, get dragged from hotel room to hotel room. It is not going to be how you think you'll this is perfect, Okay, cool, all right, thank you, thank you, Chris, Yeah, thank you. We're up and running right, thank you. Here we are with Rob Marshall, the director of Mary Poppins Returns, also the writer. Yes, I wrote the first time, right that

you've written the script. I've never been a member of the w g A or um and but this was something I felt I needed to be part of the writing process for. And so myself and John De Luca and David McGee all wrote the story and then David wrote the screenplay, which is so beautiful and so yeah, you know what, I have to say that when you

do original musical, which I'd never done one for film before. Um, the only way I feel it can be done is if a director is involved, literally from the very beginning, because you're shaping the whole piece, all of it. You know, it's not just something that people go away and do. It has to be a real collaboration. Um. This is such a complicated film in many ways because we're it's this grand balancing act, as you know. So it was the to to actually be part of the writing process,

which was a big part for me. Welcome to the writer's ranks. Thank you, Thank you for doing the show. I really appreciate you to do with Thank you. I saw the movie a few weeks ago at the PGA screening actually on the lot. There was a nice one. Yeah, superb movie caught me by surprise a little bit. I don't really know what I was expecting, I guess, but I just it's delightful. It felt like as was kind of the rhetoric there, and and it's real. It feels

like something we kind of need at the moment. I mean, did you feel that in the making of it? I did. I really felt. I mean, in a way the whole UM. What guided me the entire time, the whole time was this sense of what we were saying with this film. What I was saying with this film because UM, this idea that in a dark time there is a ray of light that can come and help you move through a darker time. UM was something that was very personal to me. UM. I felt like you know when you

have UM a film. For instance, our film set in the thirties of the depression eary in London, and it felt very connected to me to today. I feel a lot of people are struggling in life to make ends me to you know, to bring up a family, and and and and I also felt that this idea of loss, which is what our films about too, you know, the loss of not only you're the wonder and joy that you have as a child. You know, um, that loss is also part of um you know, uh, something that

happens as you grow older. You know, you as you get older, life comes in and you have to you know, you put away those things. And and so that loss compounded with this idea that there's a loss of the of the mother. For instance, in this film, it was

about a family that needed to heal. And so you know, I've sort of found my way um through this with this in the entire time, thinking that you know, what I like to do is send a message of hope not only to the story, to this families, etcetera, etcetera, but also I really thought it's kind of what we

need now. I mean, I certainly would like to go to the movies and be lifted out of my daily life into something that I find it is, you know, has some some I don't know, hope and joy and all of that, and and it's rare and some people think of it as trivial, but I actually think it's a very profound thing. Yeah, it's Uh. I was just

having a conversation with some people out in the lobby. Uh, A lot of great films this year, but a lot of them just kind of make you feel like crap by design really, and it's just like the artistry is fantastic, but it's just kind of the era dits dictates the

art in a lot of ways. Right, So, I mean you're and so beautifully said, because um, I will say everyone involved in this film, from Meryl Street to Emily bl Hunt, to Lin Manuel Miranda to Calling Forth, everybody wanted to be part of this so much, which was honestly a tribute to the fact that everybody wanted to send this message out into the world right now. And I feel that you're absolutely right. It's about the time that you're living what you know, what do we need?

And and I just felt like, you know, that carried me through this very complicated three years of creating this film, and it's why ultimately for me, it's my most personal film because it it really resonates deeply with me. Um and it's a message that I sort of try and live every day, which is sort of sort of defined, you know, look at things from a sort of a positive place, look at things from a place of wonder and sort of you know, in a way innocence sort of how can you? How can you? How can you

view life? And it's what Peel Travers did in all these books. You know, this wild, crazy, animatic character helps you know, children, um, sort of rediscover you know, uh, joy in life and and so you know, I know it's funny when you say it. It could sound somewhat trivial, but I find it very very, very important. That's elemental. I think it's elemental. It's like it helps you get up in the morning. Yeah, yeah, you said at that

screen I was at. You said that Mary Poppins was the first movie you saw, and it's stuck with you those reasons. Well, you know what, I was too young probably to really absorb all that. What I do remember is sort of the big general feeling of music, magic, fantasy, you know, big movie screen performances, dance, all of that. I know that launched me into the world of musicals and into the world of choreography. You know, I started

as a dancer. You know, Um, I know it opened my soul, whole mind to that and whole life to that that that whole you know, this the genre, and I, of course I've revisited the film over and over again over the years and and now you know, of course know it so deeply, and I feel it's actually very much inside me. But you know, I what a perfect film, and you know, I found out it's a lot of people's first film. It's the it's the it's the perfect film to to bring to you know, to open someone's mind,

to a child's mind too. Yeah, for sure, I I mean certainly I remember that and bed knobs and Brunce yes exactly exactly, which is why we cast Angela. One of the reasons we cast Angela. No, she was in the movie by I mean, I looked and I was like, oh, they announced this. It was not a surprise, but I didn't I missed that. I guess he comes late in

the film. And it's a it's a it's a P. L. Travers character, the balloon lady, and she has to have a little bit of magic to her too, so and and and it's and it's not a it's not a big role. So in a moment you need to accept the fact there's there's some magic about her, and Angela just carries that with her because of not only she's a great actress, but you know, she's Mrs Potts, she's you know, she's she's she's elemental as well. She's elemental

as well. You obviously need to and want to maintain a fidelity to the original aesthetic of the film, right. But within that, um, you know, what were your ideas to innovate and and break the mold a little bit or were you keeping a strong eye on not over reaching in that way. It's such a good question because I you know, that was the balancing act the entire time. But for me, the most important thing was to sort

of forge new territory. Um. And that was that all came together when I chose to place it in the thirties, when the original books were written. Um, you feel the depression era in the books, you know, there's it's so interesting in the books they talked about seventeen Cherry Shelan being the shabbiest house on the street and that Mrs Banks had a choice between fixing up the house or having children, you know, so you get a sense of that inside the you know, inside the the actual books themselves.

But my my goal was to really, um, look for a new story to tell. Um and and the question really was what happened to Michael and Jane. You know, um here it is twenty five years later from the original film nineteen ten is when it was set when Walt Disney said it then, and so you know where what happened? And and and and we had to look for a big reason for Mary Poppins to return, you know.

And that was this whole idea of loss and the loss of you know, that is what I said before, and and and that and that really, um, that was that was the focus, because I wanted new music, an original score, original story. Mary Poppins, of course is the same character. She doesn't age, you know, but but it's played by a different woman, of course, and and you know, you have Michael and Jayne's character has grown up. But it's it's sort of like I was looking for a

new new story. And because it's I think too easy to sort of just say, well, we're just gonna do I mean, first of all, who would I mean, it's such a perfect film, the original film, so um, it was really about how can we follow that but stay as you said in the feeling of the first film and with you know, I really wanted to risk back in pay homage to that. That was important to me because I used myself, honestly as a barometer. I thought

to myself, Okay, what would I want to see? You know, if I came to see a sequel Mary Poppins, I would want to see an animation sequence with live action, you know, I'd want to see something like that, you know. So I used myself all the time as sort of like the big fan of the film, like I know everybody many people are UM, but how do you do that at the same time create something new that leaves me wondering, like what at what point did the needle spike?

And you're like, let's not do that. Well, you know what. I remember we were looking at something UM early on where we were going to score something with some music from the first film UM. And there was a line I remember the first when Mary Poppins arrived that we had originally I think she says hello to Jack. She lands from the kite from this big storm and she lands and she says, um, how are you Jack? And he says super cala, fragilistic, expialidocious, and it just was

too much. We had just you know, Mary Poppins had you know, hadn't even landed on their earth, and she and we're already referencing the winking and winking, and I just that's such a good that's such a great way to say it, winking, because it's so it was so easy to send it up or wink, and I thought, no, we have to be so so careful to really play the truth of this, to really feel connected to this family, to understand this is a real dilemma for these people.

So you can then be invested in these characters, and then when they go on these adventures, you know, then it's then you can go with them. But then when we come back to reality, you're feeling, I don't know, somehow emotionally connected to this these people, uh regarding the aesthetic conversation and just you know, maintaining a vibe. I was actually curious if digital versus celluloid was a conversation because you went with the Alexa. Yes, exactly, Well, you

know it was because I love shooting on film. You know, It's just that it's it's so much more expensive now, and it's so complicated to do. It's just slower. And I already knew what I had on my plate. I knew what I had on my plate was enormous. It felt like I was doing literally three movies at once, because you know, not only are you doing an original musical. You know you're working with children, You're working with a lot of visual effects. You're also working with animation. That

whole sequence is fifteen minutes long. Um, and so the layers of all that, I thought, you know what, I have to be able to move as quickly as possible. So I spent some time with young Bbie or a cinematographer, and I, you know, I basically said, can we make this look as rich and as beautiful as possible? And he was certain we could. Um, it's hard, you know. The departure film was a hard one for me. My first film, Chicago was on film and it was you know, I love the texture of it, I love the feel

of it. But I thought we'd really it everything we could to make it feel as rich and as sort of visceral as possibly. Happy with it, very happy, very thank you for asking. I'm very happy. You know you mentioned this, But a movie like this, you're involved in so many disciplines, right, You've got the choreography, which obviously is your trade anyway, animation, songwriting, on top of the usual you know, dealing with the production design and costumes

and all of this. Uh, you know, obviously choreography is a big passion of yours. I'm just curious if any of these popped out is like your favorite thing to get your hands dirty with? You know? Well, I have to say the animation sequence, which because I've never attempted anything like that or worked with animators or anything like that, that was the most daunting, the most exciting, and the and the hardest work because and we started with it.

That's the first thing we started filming because it's all hand drawn animation, so they needed time. So we actually I I edited that whole sequence, um, while I was still shooting, so we could get it to them so they could start working. Um. That means Sandy Powell was working hard. Early. Everybody was like, what we're doing that first? And I said, guys, you know what we need to

for the animators. I mean, as it was, we had over fourteen months of post production and they used every second of that, because every single frame has hand drawn animation and so um. But that that, you know, we had animators in the room with us. We had choreographers in the room with us, dance arrangers of course, musical directors, the composer, lyricists, all that. Plus you are you know, choreographing as you said, John D. Luke and myself are

literally choreographing animals, you know, penguins and flamingos. And we used referenced answers for all of that. So we would shoot it kind of three times. We would shoot it once with just um Emily alone, for instance, to say there was a section, and then would be and then we do just like, for instance, the reference penguins, and then we would actually shoot it with all of them so we could create the frame we were looking for,

and so you would have all these layers. It was a very compregated sequence, but so great to work with these animators, and they had to learn how to work inside a live action movie. You know. They would say something like to me like, well, you know, now lin Manuel can just jump over there, and I said, well, he's a person, so it's going to take him a little more time than you're saying, just to whack over there, you know what I mean, because they see things in

animation speed. So that was fascinating and then, you know, but then I had to learn from them too. I mean, there was a moment where Lynn had a penguin on his cane and penguin is you know, is sort of perched on there, and they said, you know, it needs to be heavier than that. We need to show Lynn needs to show that there's a heavy penguin on his on his cane. And so I mean that's a little example of how we were working together to find this

and of course to coordinate all of that together. There was visual effects involved in that to sort of put the two D animation into our movie into a live action film. So it was fascinating and work on it was. It was. It was. But you know, it's a fifteen minute sequence. It has three sort of big sections to it. But wow, I mean seeing that come to life, seeing the pencil sketches turn into some color into like, you know, fully realized, you know, a fully realized sequence. I mean

that process was unbelieving. That's an amazing sequence. I think I feel like if I call Mark Platt one of your producers mentioned that some of the some people came out of retirement to work on that well, because what's interesting is that hand drawn animation is really becoming a lost art. Although I was hopeful in this film because we did bring a bunch of guys out of retirement who we needed the expertise. They were thrilled though, because

it was this project, so they came. And but what was great was there were some twenty something's you're you know, that were really interested in learning the old school, old style classic animation and so hand drawn animation. So they much more interested in that then, you know, than the computer general way to work. And so they came on board to learn from these masters. It was incredible to walk in there and see them all working together. Did you happen to have anybody that had worked on the

first film? And so, you know what, I did meet somebody though recently I can't remember his name, a lovely man who saw the film, but he's I think he's sort of even passed, you know, retirement at this point. But but we you know, we had we had some guys who have done the classic work, for instance, like Beauty and the Beasts, a Little Mermaid that era not but not quite the era of Mary Poppins. There's this guy I met, This is an aside. His name is

Milton Kwand do you know what I'm talking about. He's he's a hundred and eight years old. I think he was a Disney animator way back in the day. And he was in the movie Speed. He was one of the passengers on the bus Your kid and I did this story where I caught up with all of those actors to do like an oral history of Speed. And he had all these watercolors he had drawn of like the bus and stuff. So it was just such an interesting, so cool. I know, they instead of speaking, you know,

they're always drawing. We had this fantastic workshop where we just put everybody together, all these animators together, so we could create the sequence at the Disney studios and um, do you know that there's a there, there's a there's a great bungalow there that's from the original studio and it's called the Hyperion Bungalow. So we were there, which was felt very right. We were like, you know, like

the original studio and uh. And the guys were incredible and the women, they were so I mean we would talk and they would just be their heads would be down and just sketching, sketching, sketching, and show me, uh, you know, a sketch or a picture. Um, and then you know, how about this? And that's how they that's how they offered their ideas. It wasn't sort of speaking, it was by visual. It's right, much easier. Yeah, how about this? And so we started storyboarding that and putting

it all around the room until we had the whole sequence. Cool. That was fun. I'm curious, what's been the like the cumulative snowball effect from you know, your Broadway days through like all these movie musicals that you've made, Chicago nine, Into the Woods and now this, Like what has been the snowball effect of what you've learned and applied going forward with each thing? You know what I mean? Such a great question, Chris, really, Um, you know it's funny.

I always feel when I started film like I've never done anything before, you know, so, But then what kicks in is your gut, your your gut about things, and I learned early on just to trust that because you

have more knowledge than you think you do. You know, Um, I think for this one I needed all that, the arsenal of all of that because it was a new musical which I've never done before, and I thought, I really need to know, you know, how to build this um, make sure that the music comes out of the story, that it feels seamless earned. A song should feel earned. You know. Musicals that don't work are musicals where they start singing and it doesn't feel earned. Somehow, it feels awkward,

it feels embarrassing. You know, um, they shouldn't be singing. And so it was my goal to really create a fabric of a film where we could tell the story through song. But it felt like the rules of the of of of the filmmaking and and that's it seems. It should seem effortless when you see it to see, well, of course they have a song there. But knowing that we tried many different songs. We had four or five different songs for literally most of the material, like we

tried I know, Lynn Manuel's first song. I think we had maybe four or five songs. Um Emily Blunt's first song. That was a big deal because it's the first time Mary Poppins sings in fifty four years. You know, we I think we had five different songs for sure. I mean it was that kind of work, um, But we all knew that the bar was so high, so that's why we were reaching. How did you like that process? Getting involved with original music and in working with the

songwriters and all of that. I love that part, um. You know, it was great to be able to sit down and sort of craft a story with David McGee and John de Luca and then bring Mark and Scott and to help us flesh it out and find, you know, where it works. And it's such a give and take. You really have to park your egos at the door because you know, sometimes the best scene becomes a song, you know, yeah, and then sometimes you know, a song doesn't work, so it becomes a scene. You know, it

all has to flow. But what what wins is the is the film. You know, that's what you're you're serving that same thing, you're serving it the whole time. And I mentioned her briefly. How about that Sandy Powell? Oh my gosh, she's something else. I mean I never worked with her before, and she'd never done a musical before, and he usually worked with Colleen out what is exactly exactly? So you're working with the two best I think, well, they're amazing. I will say I feel like, you know,

completely spoiled, but they're extraordinary. And she was amazing. You know, she's British and I that was actually very helpful on this. She had her own take on that era, the thirties, I know, for instance Mary Poppins. That was very important because you know, we looked at a lot of period films and period photographs and and artwork. Um, it was

very helpful. Actually there was one you know, there's a beautiful red coat that she wears and that was specifically designed so that because most of the sequence happens at night, so so she stands out in the in the nighttime. And I remember saying to Sandy that we're I really need to find something that moves, because there's a big dance nutwork it's called Triple Little Life Fantastic and she's you know, being lifted and spinning and turning. I said, it really needs to be a you know, a costume

that moves. And so we went to Swing Time and looked at Ginger Rogers outfit and that was really helpful to see, you know, what we could what we could use from that, So how did they how did they work you know, skirts into that, and so all of that was great. She's an amazing artist. She came up with this wonderful idea of hand painting all the costumes and for the animation sequence so it would be integrated into um that the hand drawn world, which is so great.

Like when you see, for instance, Emily has a full length skirt that's like a pink and white striped skirt that she first arrives in in in the animated world, and that's what she's wearing and and there's a series of tears to it, but there but there are are no tears. It's all painted as if there were to. It's a flat piece of material that's all hand painted. So it's it's it's pretty. It's pretty genius. We should

mention your production designer to John Meyer. John Meyer, Um, you've won him, I think I say that, but you know you want him a few offscars already. H He's fantastic. And these sets like where did where did you shoot the bulk of this so that I was all shot in London, although but we did do um a lot

of location at work. One of the things that John Meyer and I really wanted to try and and and and create was the sense of a real London, UM, not just sort of a fantasy London, but a real space a place, especially because we were in the Depression era and wanted to connect to that world. So you know, we were shooting a tower bridge, we were shooting at you know, Buckingham Palace and the real St. Paul's Cathedral. You know, that was so exciting to be in London.

It felt in a way like a love letter to London. UM. And then in juxtaposition with that, you have these fantasies where you can do anything, you know, go anywhere. And so I mean he's such a visual master um and but he's so aware of my vision. He just really wants to kind of like get in my head and say what are you seeing? How do you see it? And he understands musicals and how they move Now after having done so anyway, I mean, I think I've done

five movies with him. Um. Yeah, it's you know, I feel like, in a funny way, do you know what the Arthur Freed unit is from the MGM and today? So in MGM they had something called the Arthur Freed unit. He was a producer and they that's the that's the production coming, the produce you know, that produced all the great musical all of them. And so they had a

machine kind of going. They would have the choreographers and the directors they would use like Stanley Done and Vincent and Elli, and then they would have, you know, the set designers and they all sort of had a language. And I have like this little mini Arthur Freed unit. I call it where you know, I work with designers that I've worked before, our cinematographer, you know that I worked DP that I worked before, UM musical people that

I worked before. So everyone knows and can feed into this machine because we've now done a few musicals and it's it's been great to carry that on. When you were on location, I'm curious, did you have like a bunch of crowds turning out to see Mary Poppins in the streets. Yeah, they were very excited. I remember what we were pulling up to. We we shot at the Royal Exchange for our bank, you know, and that played

the Fidelity Fiduciary bank on our film. And I remember we were driving up and I saw a woman in a Mary Poppins costume literally crossing this treet. I said, oh, here we go, there we go, here they come. But it means a lot to so many people, especially when you're in London. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that was it was fun.

I wanted to ask you what you think the future is for cinematic musicals, because you know, will it stay locked into the sort of classical conventions that are tried and true and that we all obviously keep coming back to, or do you think, well, you know, do you think there's innovation happening to really break form? Like what do you think about that future? It's such a good question

to Chris Um. I feel it depends on the property, you know, Like with Chicago, for instance, I knew I needed a really strong concept to make that work, and I, you know, it's sort of chancy obviously, because here I was creating two realities. One was on stage of vaudeville stage and one was in the reality of the twenties in Chicago, and mixing those two back and forth throughout the film. But that's what that particular property called for,

that piece called for that. I think the thing to do is make the piece that you're working on come to life and there are no rules. You just have to find what's at the essence of it. And you know, always think story, what is it? What is the story? How are you telling this story? People accept any way to tell a story as long as you're consistent with it and you really set the rules up at the beginning.

I really feel that. And so and sometimes you know, a story sings and feels right, sometimes it just is not a musical, and you know you have to kind of go with your gut on something like that. Yeah, I have two final things here. First, Sickly, do you have any plans or desire to head back to the stage and do something? Oh, Chris, that's that's interesting. You know I've I've toyed with it. In fact, I almost did in between um, you know, doing Uh Into the

Woods and and and Mary Poppins Returns. I was almost did. But then, you know, what happens for me is that I feel, in an odd way when I'm doing a film musical, I feel like I'm in a way doing theater too. We because we approach it similarly. You know, there's a rehearsal process. You know, you're building it like that. Um. And then of course it moves into a whole another genre. But you know, somehow, I maybe because I come from theater,

I still am so excited by what cinema can do. Um, even though it takes so much longer, so much longer. But I don't know, I've I still am so excited by it and the theater. It's where I came from, and I love that so much. But I still feel like this is the whole new landscape for me, you know, And you have something at the end of it. The theater is kind of drawing in the sand. That's true. I mean, that's the magic of it. Right, you've seen it, did you see it? It's gone, you know, Yeah, and

this stays forever. So that is that that's actually a special part of it too. And then finally, uh, you know, you're probably getting asked about this. I'm just curious if if it's real or if you're still if you're talking about it, But what's going on with the Little Mermaid? Is that something that's going to happen for you? Well, it's it's you know, it was. It was really lovely

that Disney approached me about that. It's a big title for them, obviously, and so right now, myself and John de Luke are and sort of what I would call the exploratory process of looking at it and seeing if it could become a film, a live action film. It's so different, you know, and it's a lot of challenges to that film. Umater underwater it's incredible, and singing underwater,

you know, staging underwater. We had a one, you know, we had a underwater sequence in this and that was that was complicated with children and flying and all kinds of things. We actually with that sequence, which I could never I would never be able to do this on

something a little mermaid. But we they sang it. Emily sang it twice as fast, so we sped up the tape sounding literally like many mouths and so and so that when we played it back at speed, there's a sort of a sense that this is for the whole number. There's a little bit of a sense of float, floating and kind of a little bit of a other worldliness to it. But interesting, Honestly, I could never do an

entire movie like that. We can probably have a whole conversation about the sound elements here too, but we gotta wrap it up. Thank you. Chris, but movies, Mary Poppins returns. It is Jordan's release date December nineteen. Go see it. I'm sure you'll be hearing about it. Great holiday movie for the family, and great work with it. Man, I really like Thank you, Chris, I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for this wonderful interview. Of course,