“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” aka “Mamma Mia 2“, was a stunning follow-up to the iconic film “Mamma Mia.” The first film followed the story of Sophie Sheridan and her mother, Donna Sheridan, as she tried to figure out who her father indeed was in time for her wedding.
The world waited years for the sequel to the legendary musical, and “Mamma Mia 2” did not disappoint. However, Christine Baranski, who played the role of Tanya in both films, revealed some hilarious hurdles they encountered in making the sequel.
She spoke on how difficult it was getting her male co-stars to sing and dance for the film’s musical numbers. Read on to learn more about what she said and why the men of Mamma Mia 2 found it so difficult to perform.
Baranski Said They Were Difficult About The Performances
Baranski was one of the “Mamma Mia 2” cast members chosen by Vulture magazine to be interviewed for their piece titled “We Should Hate It, But It Works: An oral history of the inexplicably star-studded, hallucinogenic ending of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again.”
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During her interview, she cracked a joke about her male co-stars, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, and Pierce Brosnan. Baranski said, “Just to get them to sing the song and put one foot in front of another and raise a glass of beer together, it was like rocket science.”
Baranski wasn’t wrong or exaggerating because several of her co-stars laughed at her statements and immediately agreed that Firth, Skarsgard, and Brosnan were indeed terrible. They also shared their experiences of filming musical shots with the men.
Ol Parker Also Spoke About How Bad They Were In Mamma Mia 2
The writer and director of “Mamma Mia 2”, Ol Parker, also spoke about how terrible the three men were at the musical performances in the film. He quipped that 68-year-old Brosnan, 70-year-old Skarsgard, and 61-year-old Firth were downright “arrhythmic.”
Parker also added, “Stellan, I think we digitized his mouth, because he went, ‘Oom-pah-pah,’ at the wrong time. How hard is it to do that?” and added that every shot was a big disaster but “we just get away with it.”
He did say that he enjoyed the disasters and added, “Part of the fun is watching these guys make absolute twats of themselves with complete abandon. Watch it again, and you’ll see how much they all suck.”
Skarsgard Knew He Wasn’t Cast For His Musical Talent
Skarsgard agreed with Parker about the need to digitize his mouth for some scenes and admitted that “the digitized mouth probably looks better.” He had said earlier during the interview that he and Firth were aware that “we weren’t cast because we would sing and dance” in the first Mamma Mia film.
He said, “We were cast just as, like, the bimbos that should be cute and funny. It really was like a community theater project. Some things that you’ve come up with are accepted and some are not, and you feel absolutely safe and free.”
Parker And Baranski Disagreed On The Need For Singing Talent
Parker also said that he found the decision to hire actors that couldn’t sing and dance in the first movie “astonishing” and “brilliantly democratic.” He also said, “But we always thought, because we were coming back and you want to come back bigger, that we would slightly raise the bar.”
Parker shared that he refused to accept actors that had no musical talent at all. He told Vulture, “Frankly singing, it was important to me. They didn’t have to be astonishing, but a degree of competence was looked for in the auditions.”
However, Baranski disagreed with him and said she thought “people understood that it was something very tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing,” regarding the lack of musical talent. She also said, “None of us were seasoned musical-comedy performers. I’ve done musicals, but I wouldn’t characterize my career as mainly musical comedy.”
