While it may have been fun to be on the set of Mary Poppins Returns , it didn’t come without injury for actress Meryl Streep.
In a recent interview with People , the Oscar-winner shared a few things about her time on the set of the upcoming film, including one stunt gone awry. The 69-year-old says that she and the children in the cast were in the middle of her biggest musical number when she thought it would be a good idea to try and show off her acting skills to the children.
“I told them, the first thing they teach you in drama school is how to fall down. So I marched across the room and pretended to trip and fell down,” Streep explained.
Well, the stunt that she tried to show the children didn’t go too well, and as she explains, she fell so hard on both of her knees that she “practically” broke them both.
“I thought, ‘Don’t be such a jerk, you’re not 11-years-old anymore,” she told the publication.
But Nathanael Saleh, Pixie Davies, and Joel Dawson, who play the roles of the Banks children in the film, enjoyed Streep’s attempt at an acting lesson and the actress says that that is the one good thing that came of her knee injuries.
“I got a big laugh from the kids, so it was worth it,” she said, after admitting that she needed to ice her knees for three days after the whole debacle.
In the film, the Oscar winner plays the role of Mary Poppins’ eccentric cousin, Topsy. The Hollywood Reporter shared that it was a tall order when the producers were trying to cast Streep in the film and they were initially worried that she may turn the role down, seeing as she is one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. But when they emailed Meryl to offer her a part in the film, she was nothing short of thrilled.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This is what we need at this time. I need to be a part of a project like this that is going to give hope, and as Mary Poppins comes out of that sky, to know that there is, behind those clouds, something that can get us through this,” Streep’s email read.
She will star alongside Emily Blunt, who plays the role of Mary Poppins herself, and Lin Manuel-Miranda, who plays the role of a cockney lamplighter named Jack, and it certainly makes for a star-studded cast.
Mary Poppins Returns hits theaters today, December 19.
