Its hard to imagine a film with broader appeal than Mary Poppins Returns—Disneys lavish, candy-colored sequel to the beloved 1964 musical. But something unexpected beats at the heart of this holiday-season crowd-pleaser.
The original film had flashes of off-brand melancholy around its periphery, like the plaintive “Feed the Birds” sequence (reportedly Walt Disneys favorite part). But smack-dab in the middle of Mary Poppins Returns, director Rob Marshall has placed indie darling Ben Whishaw as little Michael Banks—all grown up, and desperately trying to hold his family together. The British actor, who has played doomed, heartbreaking heroes for the better part of his career, brings that same intensity to this family-friendly adventure, carving out a profound emotional core that anchors a fizzy tale of high-kicking lamplighters and a bannister-riding nanny.
On an uncharacteristically blustery Los Angeles afternoon, Whishaw sat down for a lengthy chat about how a non-singer such as himself wound up with two of the best musical moments in the film. Hes as polite and kind as the gentle cartoon bear he voices in the Paddington films, but talking about himself is clearly Whishaws least favorite part of the job. He occasionally ducked his head shyly and avoided eye contact when his embarrassment became too intolerable. When was the last time he actively pursued a role and didnt get it? “Oh, I cant tell you because its too awful,” he murmured in response, practically folding himself in half.
But Whishaws long spine straightens and his eyes light up when he talks about his work. His career was launched straight out of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2004, when acclaimed British stage director Trevor Nunn cast him to play Hamlet at the Old Vic. Whishaw was in his early twenties at the time—but with his thin frame, a wild inky mop of hair, and delicate features, he looked much, much younger. Nunn later summed up the quality that would define Whishaws entire body of work: “this extraordinary sensitivity—sort of one skin less than most people around him.”
Over the better part of a decade, Whishaw careened from that doomed Danish prince to play a wrongly convicted prisoner (Criminal Justice), an alcoholic teen aristocrat (Brideshead Revisited), consumptive romantic poet (Bright Star), frustrated journalist (The Hour), and suicidal composer (Cloud Atlas). Each time, that thin skin of his broke as, on-screen at least, disaster and death swallowed the majority of his characters whole.
His performances drew critical raves and a devoted following—but these projects largely flew under the radar. Frustrated at being pigeonholed as a fragile naif on-screen, Whishaw returned again and again to the stage—where, he said, “typecasting isnt such an issue.” Then, in 2011, another theater director came calling, this time with an offer that would change everything.
Though probably best-known to film lovers as the Oscar-winning director of American Beauty, Sam Mendes made his name on the West End stage. So when Whishaw first heard that Mendes wanted him for a role, his mind went straight to the theater. Instead, Mendes had hand-selected Whishaw for a film part: to deliver an unexpected twist on Bond mainstay Q opposite Daniel Craig in Skyfall, a hip, tech-savvy version of the gadget master.
The actors extreme youthfulness—at that point, he was in his early thirties going on 18—was still his defining quality. “You must be joking,” Craigs Bond practically snorts upon meeting Whishaws baby-faced quartermaster when they first meet. But even as spies and villains alike drop like flies around him, Whishaws Q made it through both Skyfall and its sequel intact.
Whishaw doesnt expect to continue with the Bond franchise now that Mendes has departed from it, though he has nothing but praise for incoming director Cary Fukunaga: “Im not even sure if Ill be in it. Im assuming that Im not going to be so it will be a nice surprise if they put me in. I think its right he and Daniel need to just figure it out. Ive done two; Ive had a good run.” Still, Skyfall will always mark the beginning of a new era in Whishaws career. “I was in a film that people actually saw,” he said, good-humoredly. “I mean, [that] lots of people actually saw—and that really changed things.”
Soon, Whishaw started landing bigger projects—and playing survivors instead of victims. Part of that can be attributed to age; at 38, the actor is only just starting to get some creases around his eyes, and a light dusting of pepper in his famously unruly dark coif. As he put it, “the kinds of stories people tell about people in their thirties and forties are different.” And though that handle-with-care quality still permeates everything Whishaw does, his characters on-screen are now more often men who should have been broken by circumstance, but nevertheless persisted—like his roles in both 2015s London Spy and 2018s A Very English Scandal, a pair of mentally agitated gay men caught in the vise of government-backed conspiracies who, against all odds, end up making it through.
The actor also married his longtime partner, composer Mark Bradshaw, in 2012, and the medias inquiries into the wedding pushed the notoriously private Whishaw to finally comment publicly on his sexuality—a move he later called a relief. After he was out of the closet, curiosity around that aspect of Whishaws private life evaporated.
Now Whishaws at a point where roles come to him. He can afford to be selective—and, lately, hes been choosing optimism. “For myself, but also for the world, you want to redress that balance,” he said. “Its important [to show] that you can struggle and you can come through and you can carry on and things will get better. Ive done a lot of very doom-y things. Then this came along.”
Thats how Whishaw found himself in the attic of Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, crooning oh-so-heartbreakingly to a ghost. In Mary Poppins Returns, Whishaw plays Michael Banks, one of Marys original charges—all grown up, mourning his wife, in danger of losing the Banks family home, raising three small children alone, and desperately in need of help. Whishaws first song, “A Conversation” doesnt put too much of a musical strain on him; the actor said he was inspired by some of musical theaters finest talk-singers, like his Bond and Peter and Alice co-star Dame Judi Dench, whose acting talent carried her through Stephen Sondheims famously easy-on-the-pipes “Send in the Clowns.”
The song was a late addition to the score, included to provide a glimpse into the inner workings of a man trying to maintain a stiff upper lip for the sake of his family. “I didnt feel anxious, really, because I thought I would just come at it as acting,” Whishaw said of taking his first stab at a musical. Director Rob Marshall encouraged him not to overperform—“dont try and make it sound nice,” he said—but instead, to lean into what he does best. So Wishaw let Michaels tears flow without hesitation or embarrassment, in a wholly unexpected display of sorrow at the very beginning of this sunny Disney film.
“It does sort of take you by surprise,” Whishaw acknowledged. “But then it sets something ticking, and eventually everythings going to explode for this character.”
This half-sung conversation between heartbroken husband and absent wife sets the emotional stakes of the movie, and also acts as an invocation for Emily Blunts Mary Poppins herself—who glides in to save the day and, chiefly, Michael just after Whishaw warbles his last pained note. It also stands in stark contrast to the original films glimpse inside the mind of Banks family patriarch George (played by David Tomlinson), the satisfied “The Life I Lead.” Just compare the lyrics. George sings this: “I feel a surge of deep satisfaction / Much as a king astride his noble steed / When I return from daily strife to heart and wife / How pleasant is the life I lead!” Michael sings this: “This year has gone by in a blur / Today seems everythings gone wrong here / Im looking for the way things were [. . .] Though you are not here to hold me / In the echoes I can hear your voice.”
Whishaws Michael is an artist, not a banker, and a wholly new breed of English gentleman. The enormous mustache Whishaw wears in the film almost makes him look like a child playacting. Whishaw—still guarded about aspects of his personal life—rarely talks at all about his own father. Instead, he cited Tomlinson and his twin brother, James Whishaw, as a major source of inspiration when playing Michael: “I really connect with my brothers anxiety about being a father, and about these little people who are so dependent on you.”
Though Michaels sorrow might come as a bit of a surprise to audiences, it should be no surprise that Whishaw relished the role. “Hes given up his painting, hes not really able to do even quite basic things like buy the groceries. But I think that lots of people are living quite like that, you know? Its not something wed like to talk about but lots of people struggle with apparent basics.” And though Whishaw correctly noted that the culture is often uncomfortable talking about depression and raw emotion, especially in men or fathers, that is also rapidly changing—especially in childrens entertainment. Recent films like Pixars Coco and Inside Out, as well as Whishaws own Paddington movies, have leaned heavily on the message that emotions like pain, sorrow, and loss are as much a part of life as happiness and joy.
“Its good when these things get separated from gender,” Whishaw said. “So its O.K. for everyone to be in touch with their feelings or sensitive or open. Were all in the middle of questioning so much about gender and sex right now, arent we? Masculinity is being really scrutinized in a very brilliant way.” And there may be no better, more sensitive soul to lead this trend than Whishaw—who, as a child, was so obsessed with Mary Poppins he once dressed up as her.
Whishaw, who was living in New York and performing The Crucible on Broadway during the 2016 presidential election, is also keenly aware that his beloved Paddington—the gentle bear who immigrates to London from darkest Peru and improves the lives of everyone he meets—has become something of a leftist symbol in the era of Brexit and widespread xenophobia, both in the U.K. and abroad. “Theres something lovely about that,” he said, before reciting one of Paddingtons most quotable lines: “If youre kind and polite, the world will be right. Of course, theres absolutely righteous anger and fury—a huge amount, not dismissing that at all. But Paddington expresses it nicely while also choosing to see some good.”
Watching Whishaws fragile, doomed characters toughen up into men who can weather the storm is heartening: if a Whishaw type can survive, theres hope for the rest of us. The actor has also begun pairing his Paddington and Poppins performances with some more nakedly political fare, including A Very English Scandal—about the misdeeds of liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe—and Nicholas Hytners scorching, live-wire production of Julius Caesar at The Bridge Theatre in London. (Whishaws Brutus, alas, is another classically doomed role.) Though the actor said he hasnt intentionally chosen to get political with his art, he did acknowledge a shift: “Its just whats happening and what feels important to people. Im definitely excited by how the two things marry up—the personal and the political.”
But one thing is very clear: kind and polite as he may be, Whishaw has also become utterly practical when it comes to what he will and will not do artistically. The actor bowed out of playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody because, he said, “I never really could find a way in, and I guess eventually they just realized that.” He almost bowed out of Paddington for the same reason—something he said that he and his Poppins co-star Colin Firth bonded over. Firth was originally cast in the role, but Whishaw ended up taking it over. (Said the actor, with an affectionate smile: “Im not worried about Colin Firth.”) Eventually, Whishaw found his way into Paddingtons voice by turning the iconic bear into the purest distillation of his own sensitive self.
For a long time, the most commercial thing Whishaw had ever done was a series of Birds Eye frozen-food adverts when he was still in school. So, how would the young RADA graduate react knowing he would star one day in Bond, Disney, and Paddington films?
“I dont think I would have been at all interested, but you change,” he said. “Its a nice diet, if you see. I like being able to do something really big, and then something tiny, and something independent, and something not.” Whishaw mentioned boundary-pushing Yorgos Lanthimos, who cast him in The Lobster, as the kind of auteur he would like to work with in the future, though he ducked his head and blushed when asked to name anyone else specific hed like to join forces with.
The mainstream may well lose Whishaw to the next passing Grecian director, then. But for now, we can all benefit from his particular brand of thin-skinned vulnerability—tempered, by time, into optimism—whether hes whipping up a fresh batch of marmalade, or sailing through the London air with Mary Poppins on the string of a balloon.
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Joanna RobinsonJoanna Robinson is a Hollywood writer covering TV and film for VanityFair.com.
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