Meryl Streep would love to return as a dancing queen once more.
During a recently published Vogue oral history of Mamma Mia, the Oscar-winning actress and a few of her co-stars shared their thoughts on a third Mamma Mia movie.
“I’m up for anything,” Streep said. “I’ll have to schedule a knee scoping before we film, but if there’s an idea that excites me, I’m totally there.”
The 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which debuted ten years after the 2008 film, revealed that Streep’s character Donna had died. Her death kicks off the storyline, which sees her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) working to reopen the Hotel Villa Donna to honor her mother. Along the way, she learns more about Donna’s past, which features flashbacks of young Donna (Lily James) and how she met Sophie’s fathers. While Streep doesn’t appear in the movie much, she does make a cameo at the end.
Producer Judy Craymer admitted that she was “chastised on social media for killing off Meryl,” but she promises that she didn’t do it on purpose. “She [Streep] was hesitant about doing another film because she doesn’t typically do sequels,” Craymer added. “But I know she loved coming back to film her scenes for Here We Go Again! She felt the love around her and the joy of reuniting with those people, so I think that made her more open to the prospect of a third.”
As for how Donna would return for another sequel, Streep has previously brainstormed some ideas.
“I told Judy if she could figure out a way to reincarnate Donna, I’m into that,” the actress explained. “Or it could be like in one of those soap operas where Donna comes back and reveals it was really her twin sister that died.”
But Streep isn’t the only star who would love to reprise their roles for another film. Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Dominic Cooper and Stellan Skarsgård said they are all down if there’s a “good enough script to give us another go.”
Seyfried said, “I dare you to show me one person who doesn’t want a third Mamma Mia!“
“I text Judy every other day, ‘Number three when?’” Cooper added. “I know we’re all dying to do it, and Meryl was definitely bummed about not being in much of the second one. She understood that was where the story goes, but I remember her saying, “Well, I didn’t wanna be dead.”
And if Craymer had it her way, “Mamma Mia 3 would be in the can already. There has to be another one because people want it.”