While Dick Van Dyke is ready to chim chim cher-ee his way into a brief appearance for Disney’s upcoming Mary Poppins Returns sequel — as a greedy heir, no less! — Julie Andrews won’t be following his toe-tapping lead. Out of respect to Poppins’s new portrayal by Emily Blunt, Andrews has chosen to forgo any cameo opportunities so Blunt will have her full chance to shine in the iconic role. “Julie was incredibly gracious, and we talked about it in a very general way but she made it clear right up front,” the sequel’s director, Rob Marshall, recently explained to EW. “She said, ‘This is Emily’s show, and I really want it to be Emily’s show. I don’t want it to be, ‘Oh, here comes that Mary Poppins.’ I don’t want that. I really want her to take this and run with it, because she will be brilliant.”
Despite that reluctance, Andrews is still quite enthused for Poppins to be returning to the big screen after all of these years. “She said it’s time and she said, ‘I know it’ll be cared for,’” Marshall continued. “And that’s the thing I think about every day when I’m at work. We all do.” Because once a Dame, always a Dame.
