Dick Van Dyke has been ridiculed for his attempt at a British accent for "60 years".
The 93-year-old actor has been widely mocked for his Cockney accent in 1964’s ‘Mary Poppins’, and prior to his cameo appearance in the new ‘Mary Poppins Returns’, Dick had to work diligently to sound like a real-life Brit.
He shared: "I’ve taken it on the chin for 60 years about my atrocious Cockney accent in the first movie.
"No one has ever forgotten it. Because of that, they had a language gal almost handcuffed to me. She made me sound pretty good. They won’t laugh at me on this one."
Dick previously said that P .L. Travers – who created the Mary Poppins character – hated everything about the original movie.
But he revealed that Emily Blunt has taken a different approach to Dame Julie Andrews about playing the iconic nanny in the new movie.
Asked whether the author would be happier with the sequel, Dick told the New York Times newspaper: "She’d probably dislike it just as much!
"But did you know that Emily Blunt read all the Mary Poppins books? So she gives it a little different approach than Julie did. Emily’s is closer to the book – she’s a little more stern. Miss Travers might have been a little happier with that."
Dick also hopes that a new generation of kids will fall in love with Mary Poppins.
He said: "I get a lot of mail from little kids who love Mary Poppins. There’s something timeless about what Walt [Disney] did."
Dick Van Dyke’s British accent has haunted him for ’60 years’
