Mary Poppins Returns: Who does Lin-Manuel Miranda play?

Lin-Manuel Miranda stars in Mary Poppins Returns along with Emily Blunt in the titular role. Let’s break down what we know about Miranda’s role.

There’s nothing Lin-Manuel Miranda can’t do, and he’s the perfect person to star in Mary Poppins Returns. While his role is not meant to be an updated version of Dick Van Dyke’s Bert, it looks like his character is certainly a kindred spirit.

Miranda plays a character named Jack in Mary Poppins Returns. Jack is a lamplighter who always looks on the bright side of life and he knows everyone in the neighborhood because it’s his job to go around and light the lamps every evening. It’s not surprising that he knows Mary Poppins because he has a good heart and she tends to appreciate these things.

Like Bert in the 1964 classic, Jack looks up in the sky and sees Mary Poppins flying in on a just-right breeze. The fact that this doesn’t bother him in the slightest suggests that they know each other, and the idea of other stories featuring Mary Poppins and Jack would be a sheer delight. Miranda and Emily Blunt have a ton of chemistry together and watching them off on new adventures in future movies with fun new characters, would be a lot of fun.

It’s worth noting that the Mary Poppins Returns story is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression and so there is a shelf life to Miranda’s character. Sadly, the next two decades in Great Britain are marked by war and recovery, so it’s possible that there won’t be another Miranda and Blunt team up unless Miranda, like Van Dyke, plays another character in another era. With that in mind, a Mary Poppins film set in the 1960s UK would be fantastic, especially with a little Beatles “Yellow Submarine” influence.

Mary Poppins Returns opens in theaters on Dec. 19.