Angela Lansbury Back At Disney In ‘Mary Poppins Returns’

Angela Lansbury, who has starred in a number of Disney films over her long career, has just joined the cast of Rob Marshall’s sequel Mary Poppins Returns, which is filming at Shepperton Studios. She will portray the Balloon Lady. The film is scheduled for release Christmas Day 2018.

Directed and produced by Marshall, who directed Chicago to six Oscars including Best Picture, Mary Poppins Returns stars Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer and Julie Walters with Colin Firth and Meryl Streep also in the film as well as … original Disney favorite Dick Van Dyke.

The new film, a sequel to Disney’s 1964 classic Mary Poppins, also is being produced by John DeLuca (Chicago) and Marc Platt (La La Land) from a screenplay by Life of Pi‘s David Magee. It is, of course, based on The Mary Poppins Stories by PL Travers. The Hairspray Live! team of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman are composing new songs with Shaiman composing an original score.

Mary Poppins Returns introduces three new Banks children and is set in Depression-era 1930s London (the time period of the original novels) and follows Michael (Whishaw) and Jane (Mortimer) now all grown up, with Michael, his three children and their housekeeper, Ellen (Walters), living on Cherry Tree Lane. After Michael suffers a personal loss, the nanny Mary Poppins (Blunt) re-enters the lives of the Banks family, and, along with the optimistic street lamplighter Jack (Miranda), uses her 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).

Lansbury, who voiced Mrs. Potts in Disney’s animated blockbuster Beauty and the Beast, is a five-time Tony winner actress who also appeared such classic Disney films as Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

She is repped by Zero Gravity Management and attorney Bob Myman.