"It's one of the most beautiful places I've been in my life," says Meryl of their idyllic location, adding that everyone in the cast bonded easily. "We had fantastic dinners at tavernas, where would could sit 16 people together, and we ate together every night, and there was a lot of great dancing."
In theaters July 18, 'Mamma Mia!' is based on the hit Broadway musical, itself inspired by the incredibly catchy music of Abba. Featuring such sing-along classics as "Dancing Queen," "Knowing Me, Knowing You," "SOS" and, of course, "Mamma Mia," the story follows an independent, single mother (Meryl) and her spirited, about-to-be-married daughter (Amanda Seyfried) who is determined to find the identity of her father to walk her down the aisle.
Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard are the three candidates, all of whom were involved with Meryl's character 20 years earlier when they visited her Mediterranean paradise. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski round out the cast as Meryl's best girlfriends, with Dominic Cooper as Amanda's handsome fiancé.
Meryl tells Lara that she used to listen to Abba back in the days of drama school when she'd be in exercise class "because that music does get you pumping when you're lazy," and adds with a smile that sometimes those catchy tunes "go into your head and lodge there, and I thought I knew them all, but I had some of the lyrics wrong [and] they pointed it out to me."
So, which is her favorite Abba song? "God, I don't know," she says. "'Dancing Queen' was like the iconic great song. It was impossible to maintain your gloom, or even try as I might to go down."
Watch "The Insider" on TV Monday night for more with Meryl and Lara!
How do you feel about Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the Stars?
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