Blunt plays the iconic titular nanny in the new film, which has been a box office success since its release before Christmas. Joel Dawson plays the youngest member of the next generation of Banks kids: Georgie, who encounters Mary Poppins when he loses control of a kite in the park. It seems that he was an adorable handful on set during production.
Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel’s US chatshow, Blunt recalled: “There was a lot of Joel wrangling on set.
“He was sort of crazy and had never done a film before; it was all so new to film and he didn’t know how to focus.
“And it was like, ‘OK, we’re rolling, Joel, we’re rolling, Joel… Joel, please…'”
She added of one particular moment: “I had this mammoth monologue, I remember, really fast paced. I was just trying to focus for a second.
“And they were like, ‘OK, rolling, rolling’, and Joel would be like, ‘Emily, what do you get if you put the letter B in front of the word ‘oobs’?
“And I was like [nervous face].”
As the studio audience laughed, she quipped: “They were like, ‘and action’ and I was like, ‘shh, shut up’.
“And it graduated to ‘agina’ and the letter V. He’s so dirty, that one!”
Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer have also spoken about working with the young actors, saying they would reprimand the adults when they forgot a line.
In the same interview, Blunt also revealed that the first scenes she shot were the big animated set-pieces.
“They got these 90-year-old animators out of retirement to come back and draw [it]… they were thrilled,” she said.
Mary Poppins Returns is out now.