Dick Van Dyke Says He Paid Walt Disney $4,000 to Play Banker in Mary Poppins: 'I'd Do It Again'

Dick Van Dyke may have had two roles in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, but one of them came at a hefty price

Published on November 22, 2018 03:54PM EST

Dick Van Dyke may have had two roles in Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins, but one of them came at a hefty price.

The 92-year-old star spoke to Lin-Manuel Miranda for Thursday’s ABC 20/20 special Mary Poppins Returns: Behind the Magic, in which he claimed that Disney wanted him to pay for the role as the banker in the 1964 classic.

“I had to go to Walt and ask him for the part. He wouldn’t give it to me,” Van Dyke explained. “I said, ‘I’ll do it for nothing.’ Actually, I had to give him $4,000 — I paid him to do the part.”

Despite having to shell out a pretty penny for the role of Mr. Dawes Sr., Van Dyke said he had no regrets.

“And I’d do it again!” he said.

In Mary Poppins Returns, Van Dyke has a cameo as the son of Mr. Dawes Sr. In the original, the actor also played Bert, a chimney sweep.

“They made me a gorgeous head of hair and a beard and everything,” the actor said of his cameo. “I said, ‘Do you know you’re making up a 91-year-old man to look like a 91-year-old man?'”

The upcoming film stars Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins and Miranda, 38, as Jack the street sweeper.

“You spend five minutes with Dick Van Dyke and you are more alive than you were before,” Miranda, 38, said in a PEOPLE exclusive clip while Blunt, 35, laughed alongside him.

“You feel like you’re not doing enough in your life,” she added.

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Van Dyke shocked fans when the sequel trailer dropped earlier this year and showed the legendary actor dancing on a desk — looking exactly the same as he did 54 years earlier in the original opposite Julie Andrews.

“He has more energy at 91 than I ever have in my life, and I’m not an unenergetic person,” Miranda said. “It was such a joy to have him there.”

“The energy and the spirit behind the eyes is extraordinary,” Blunt added.

Mary Poppins Returns: Behind the Magic – A Special Edition of 20/20 airs Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.