Julie Andrews is one of the all-time actresses of her generation, with a stunning voice and more charisma than most people can even think about. She’s mostly retired now, with only a handful of appearances in films in the recent decade, and her next is a voice role in… Aquaman?
Yes! That’s right! According to Entertainment Weekly, Mary Poppins herself will lend her powers of whimsical insight to the role of a, uh, magical undersea creature. She will be playing the Karathen, some sort of mythical undersea creature, who plays an important role in Arthur’s journey; supposedly it “holds the key to Arthur Curry’s (Jason Momoa) quest to unite the Atlantean and surface worlds.”
Superhero movies cast otherwise unrelated celebrities all the time, but this one just utterly delights me. Her presence is so rare to see on film these days.
“We wanted the Karathen to have the voice of a classic British actress, albeit somewhat digitally altered,” said Aquaman producer Peter Safran. “And when we found out Julie was interested and available and excited to do it, casting her was a no-brainer.”
Ironically, this now positions Julie Andrews — the original Mary Poppins — against Mary Poppins Returns in theatres, when Aquaman comes out on December 21 (or a week earlier, if you have Amazon Prime). Sorry, Emily Blunt.