CraveOnline: Why not? I’m curious, because you could have gone in this direction: a clash of wills, people who have different ideas about the character… now it’s done. People will love the movie, the movie will live on…
Kelly Marcel: Right.
The books will be marginalized, and she didn’t like it.
Yeah! It just wasn’t the story I was telling. I was telling the story of the father and the daughter. For me, this movie is not about the making of Mary Poppins, it’s about parents’ relationships with their children, and redemption, and forgiveness, and how our relationships with our parents affect us as adults. We find ourselves behaving in certain ways and doing certain things because of the influences from our childhood. That’s the movie for me.
It’s tricky though, because she wrote all those books about that relationship with her father, and because now the end of the film is a catharsis, it makes it seem like it’s only Disney’s interpretation that helped her get over her baggage. Do you think that’s a risk?
Again, I think that’s in the eye of the beholder. For me, I feel like it’s the journey she’s put herself through that brings her to catharsis at the end of this film. Maybe she is crying because she hates it. We’re not definitely saying it’s a cathartic moment. It could be that she’s just crying because she hated it. It could be that… Like, everyone says to me, “Well, is it true when Walt goes to her and talks about his father… He’s just being manipulative, right?” Actually, I love that people think that. Because it’s actually true, that story about his dad is completely true. He’s being honest with her. But the idea that he might not be is also something that I very much wanted to put out there…
Or that he’s being truthful, but that he’s saying it now for a very specific reason: to connive her into giving him the rights to Mary Poppins.
Yeah. He may or he may not be, and I like that the film does that, and I hope that actually her crying in the cinema doesn’t give you a definite, “She’s getting over it!”
I got the impression that’s what, at least, John [Lee Hancock] was going for, at least with Mickey Mouse taking her by the arm, “Oh, everything’s going to be okay now. We made the movie.” Because it bothers me… Someone asked a question at the press conference. “What was your first experience with Mary Poppins?” They only talked about the movie, they never talked about the books.
Right.
That bothers me, actually. I feel like that’s unfair to a really talented writer.
People didn’t read the books!
I know.
I mean, the books did not sell before the movie. So, you know, there’s a reason she sold [the rights]. She didn’t make any money. Nobody read them. Nobody read them. They were not popular books. The fact that Ralph and Walt Disney have them in the film is completely ridiculous. They would never have had those books, both of them, at the same time. They sold nothing. Because Walt Disney made the film, they became bestsellers. So there’s also that argument that if you’re a big fan of the books, the reason you are is because there was a movie! That’s the only way you got hold of them, because they went into reprint because of it.
Well, I actually inherited my Mom’s copies from the 1940s…
Oh my god, you got the old ones!
I got the old ones. I don’t think they’re first editions but they’re right up there.
That’s so beautiful.
They’re beautiful, and they’re sweet, and I grew up loving them.
And they’re dark!
They’re dark! And this was what I thought was really interesting, and I thought your screenplay really captured this part well… When Rachel Griffiths shows up…
Yeah.
And she’s the real Mary Poppins.
Yeah.
And she’s the one who’s like, “Yes, it’s all exciting and magical and now we have work to do.”
Yeah, she’s hardcore. [Laughs]
The books are about how the world is very magical… now, do something useful. The world is magical, it’s always magical, but we have to be responsible. And the irony is that her father is the kind of person every movie father [transforms into]. Mary Poppins, the movie, ends with the kids’ dad becoming…
Something else.
Something more like Colin Farrell’s character, but without the alcoholism, I hope.
Yeah. Yeah.
I just thought that was very interesting. There’s a lot of very weird levels here, where they’re trying to fix her father… save Mr. Banks… by turning him into what he was before she found there was a darkness to who he was. I just think that’s interesting…
It’s not really a question, it’s just an observation.
Yeah, she was a very straight woman. She did not deal in whimsy, which Walt very much did. He loved a bit of whimsy and sentiment, and she didn’t deal in that. So with Ellie… Yes, Ellie comes in with a carpetbag, but it’s not really magical things coming out of it, and she’s going to make you tidy the house, and it’s not going to be fun, and no she can’t fix your dad, and that’s the reality of it.
But at least the house is tidy.
But the house is clean. Spit-spot.
