In Mary Poppins Returns, Whishaw plays Michael Banks, one of Mary’s original charges-all grown up, mourning his wife, in danger of losing the Banks family home, raising three small children, and desperately in need of help. That’s how Whishaw found himself in the attic of Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane, crooning oh-so-heartbreakingly to a ghost. “It’s important that you can struggle and you can come through and you can carry on and things will get better. “For myself, but also for the world, you want to redress that balance,” he said. He can afford to be selective-and, lately, he’s been choosing optimism. Now Whishaw’s at a point where roles come to him. After he was out of the closet, curiosity around that aspect of Whishaw’s private life evaporated. The actor also married his longtime partner, composer Mark Bradshaw, in 2012, and the media’s inquiries into the wedding pushed the notoriously private Whishaw to finally comment publicly on his sexuality-a move he later called a relief. 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 2015’s London Spy and 2018’s 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. 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. Soon, Whishaw started landing bigger projects-and playing survivors instead of victims. “I mean, lots of people actually saw-and that really changed things.” “I was in a film that people actually saw,” he said, good-humoredly. I’ve done two I’ve had a good run.” Still, Skyfall will always mark the beginning of a new era in Whishaw’s career. I think it’s right he and Daniel need to just figure it out. I’m assuming that I’m not going to be so it will be a nice surprise if they put me in. Whishaw doesn’t 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: “I’m not even sure if I’ll be in it. When was the last time he actively pursued a role and didn’t get it? “Oh, I can’t tell you because it’s too awful,” he murmured in response, practically folding himself in half. He occasionally ducked his head shyly and avoided eye contact when his embarrassment became too intolerable. He’s as polite and kind as the gentle cartoon bear he voices in the Paddington films, but talking about himself is clearly Whishaw’s least favorite part of the job. 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. 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. 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 original film had flashes of off-brand melancholy around its periphery, like the plaintive “Feed the Birds” sequence (reportedly Walt Disney’s favorite part). But something unexpected beats at the heart of this holiday-season crowd-pleaser. It’s hard to imagine a film with broader appeal than Mary Poppins Returns-Disney’s lavish, candy-colored sequel to the beloved 1964 musical.
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