Author: Jackson McHenry / Source: Vulture
As Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again director Ol Parker put it, if you’re making a sequel, “it’s an American sports thing: If you’re not playing offense, you’re playing defense.” In order to top the original Mamma Mia, Parker wanted to make sure that the sequel was bringing in something new (that wasn’t just an elaborate subtitle) — and what easier way is there to make a movie better than to bring in Cher? To quote her character in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again: “That’s the best kind of party, little girl.”
Parker tells Vulture that while he was writing the screenplay for the film, he created the part of Donna Sheridan’s (Meryl Streep) mother Ruby “nakedly for Cher.” In the first film, the characters mention Ruby, a famous singer with a tortured relationship with her daughter, in passing; Parker saw this as a way to “go deeper and moodier” in the sequel.
“When I put her in the first draft I was like, ‘This is Cher, by the way,’” he says, and though most films cast with a few backup ideas in mind, “in this case I refused to contemplate anyone other than Cher.”“Thankfully, Cher said yes,” Parker adds, “and even better day than the day she said yes was the day her plane touched down in England, because you are never quite sure if she’s gonna get on the plane and then if the plane is going to divert to Hawaii.” Superstars can be unpredictable that way, but unlike Ruby, Cher was a total professional. “She arrives, and then she turns out to be the…
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