British Actors You Should Know: Emily Blunt

Emily Blunt is an award-winning acting phenomenon whose range encompasses drama, musical theater, comedy, horror, and action movies. Born and raised in Roehampton, a well-heeled London suburb, the daughter of a barrister and English teacher, Blunt was a shy and awkward child afflicted with a stutter. School was not easy for her, but thanks to a helpful drama teacher, she found that becoming someone else –– acting –– was the cure, particularly if she assumed a regional accent. 

She is a long-term advocate for people who stutter, working with the American Institute for Stuttering, as reported by Variety last year: "I am grateful to shed light on [stuttering] because it is a disability that lives very often in the shadows alongside its friends: fear and shame and humiliation."

She attended the prestigious Hurtwood House in Surrey, a boarding school with a respected drama program that took a production to the Edinburgh Festival. There, Blunt was spotted by an agent and began job hunting. Early stage roles included Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the UK Chichester Festival, and she made her West End debut in director Peter Hall’s 2001 revival of the 1927 play The Royal Family, as Judi Dench’s granddaughter. She was named Best Newcomer in Theater that year by The Evening Standard.

From there, she moved to TV and film, becoming a household name in 2006 as Emily Charlton in The Devil Wears Prada. This breakout role has led to more films in different genres and a career in the U.S. She’s married to actor/director John Krasinski, whose big break was in the American version of The Office, and with whom she frequently collaborates.

Written by Andrew Davies and directed by Bill Anderson for Masterpiece, 2003's Warrior Queen stars Blunt in her debut film role as Isolde, a daughter of Queen Boudica (Alex Kingston), who led the Iceni tribe in a bloody rebellion against the Roman colonizers in first-century Britain. It was Blunt’s debut film role. Enthusiastically slammed by viewers for its lack of sense or historical accuracy, and extraneous Celtic/Druid mysticism, the film seems to owe a debt to Braveheart (lots of tattoos and weird hair). Somewhere in there, Dominic Cooper has a small role.

Warrior Queen is streaming free on YouTube.

Blunt is unforgettable as Emily Charlton in The Devil Wears Prada, the acerbic fashionista and minion for Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep), who steals every scene she shares with lead Ann Hathaway’s Andrea Sachs. It was Blunt’s idea to make the character English, and she improvised many of her lines. Both she and Hathaway revealed later that they were obliged to remain model-thin for the film and were hungry on set most of the time. 

Stanley Tucci (who plays Nigel) is now Blunt’s brother-in-law, having married her sister, the literary agent Felicity Blunt. The Devil Wears Prada was adapted from Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 book of the same name by Aline Brosh McKenna and directed by David Frankel.

The Devil Wears Prada is streaming on Max.

Blunt reveals her impressive singing chops in writer James Lapine’s adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods, directed by Rob Marshall. The film is a modern twist on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, with a musical format that blends the classic tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel. 

The storylines are tied together by the couple from the tale of Rapunzel, here a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Blunt), who are under a curse of childlessness by a Witch (Meryl Streep). The Witch sends them on a quest to find magical items that will lift the curse. The film also stars Johnny Depp (Wolf), Christine Baranski (Stepmother), and Anna Kendrick (Cinderella).

Into the Woods is streaming on Amazon's Prime Video.

Directed by Rob Marshall with a screenplay by David Magee and based upon the Mary Poppins stories by PL Travers, Mary Poppins Returns is a sequel to the beloved Disney 1964 original with all-new music by Marc Shaman (songs) and Scott Wittman (lyrics). Set in the Depression, Mary Poppins is back to help the next generation of the Banks family going through hard times. Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) and his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) were once the children whose lives were transformed by Mary Poppins. 

Now Michael is a widowed single father to three children who struggles to save their house, under threat of foreclosure by wicked banker William Weatherall Wilkins (Colin Firth). It’s time for Mary Poppins (Blunt) to magically appear, save the day, and bring joy, magic, and fun (and a bit of sexiness, too) back into the family’s lives with the help of her friend Lamplighter Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda). Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke return as the Balloon Lady (one of PL Travers’s favorite characters) and Mr. Dawes, the retired owner of the bank. 

Mary Poppins Returns is streaming on Disney+.

Directed and created by Hugo Blick, the series The English is a new take on the western, an epic tale of love, revenge, and violence. In 1890, Englishwoman Cornelia Locke (Blunt) travels to the harsh environment of the American West to wreak revenge on the man she believes is responsible for the death of her son. She and Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer), an ex-cavalry scout and member of the Pawnee Nation by birth, join forces to destroy their mutual enemies (Toby Jones and Ciaran Hinds). 

Robert Ebert writes: This is a drama about lands shaped by violence and eroded by vengeance, a genre exercise with fantastic performances and film-caliber technical elements ... Blunt has always been able to balance vulnerability and strength, and those two traits exist in the same beat in some of her choices here in a captivating way. (You can also read the Telly Visions' review here.)

The English is available on Amazon's Prime Video.

Dan in Real Life stars Steve Carell as advice columnist Dan Burns, an expert on relationships, who struggles with his own outspoken and opinionated family, particularly as a single father to three precocious daughters. He falls for Marie (Juliet Binoche) in a chance bookstore encounter and then finds out at the next family gathering that she is his brother Mitch’s (Dane Cook) new girlfriend. 

Dan reluctantly agrees to a double date with their once unattractive childhood friend, Ruthie "Pig Face" Draper (Blunt, in a small but remarkable role). Dan in Real Life is directed by Peter Hedges, and written by Hedges and Pierce Gardner.

Dan in Real Life is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.

Directed by Blunt's husband, John Krasinski, who also wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, A Quiet Place stars Krasinski in the role of husband Lee Abbott and Blunt as his wife. The Abbott family's peaceful life is transformed by an alien invasion of giant reptile predators, which are blind but have incredibly sensitive hearing. We barely see the monsters, but we know they are there, and the Abbott family is plunged into a dystopian nightmare where maintaining absolute silence is the only way to save their lives. 

The family has three children, and as the movie jumps ahead several months, another is on the way. Their eldest, Regan (Millicent Simmonds), is deaf, so the whole family knows sign language and adapts as best they can to this era of silence as they flee the suburbs for a rural fortress. Blunt won the SAG Award for Outstanding Actress in A Supporting Role. If you really like to be scared, A Quiet Place II is also available, with the same cast joined by Cillian Murphy.

A Quiet Place is streaming on Paramount+.

Christopher Nolan, writer, director, and producer of Oppenheimer (winner of five Golden Globe awards) isn’t that well-known for his portrayal of women characters, but Blunt reported that she loved the role of Kitty Oppenheimer for which she was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. She told Collider: “...it’s one of the best parts that anyone has ever written for me. Not that he wrote it for me, but he wrote an exquisite part that is so layered. Even though she’s not a huge part, it packs a punch. I was so excited by her. And the thing that I love is that he wasn’t concerned with her being likable; it was just a very real interpretation of the character.”

In an era where an educated woman, even a trained scientist, was expected to devote her life to her husband, Kitty, a German-trained botanist and biologist, is stuck at home with the kids and housework in the shadow of the Manhattan Project. Worse, she shares her husband, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), with another smart, educated woman, psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). Paying lip service to the adage that “behind every man is a great woman,” Kitty grounds Oppenheimer, calling him out on his inconsistencies and demanding he take responsibility for his flaws.

Oppenheimer is streaming on Peacock.

The 2007 The Jane Austen Book Club is an ensemble film about a group of friends who decide to form an Austen book club and find that the author's insights change their relationships and lives. Prudie Drummond (Blunt) is something of an outsider, joining a core group of old friends. She’s a French teacher who worships all things French but has never been to France and covers her shyness and loneliness with pretentiousness. 

When her husband, a mostly harmless jock, cancels a long-awaited trip to Paris, Prudie finds her marriage is in crisis. Directed and written by Robin Swicord and adapted from Karen Joy Fowler’s book, the film also stars Maria Bello, Amy Brenneman, Kathy Bates, Maggie Grace, and Hugh Dancy (the token male of the group).

The Jane Austen Book Club is available on The Roku Channel.

Think of Edge of Tomorrow as Groundhog Day but with aliens. Earth is invaded and losing in this epic sci-fi thriller, which you’d think would be out of Blunt’s range, but she slays (literally) as Special Forces warrior Rita Vratask. The Mimics, a race of aliens, has captured Europe (think World War II in reverse), leaving Britain isolated. Major William Cage (Tom Cruise), a soldier with no combat experience, discovers that every time he is killed by an alien, he wakes up at Heathrow Airport (never a pleasant experience at the best of times). 

It keeps happening, because of the alien blood (don’t ask), and Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Blunt), nicknamed Full Metal B--, realizes that he’s repeating the same action day after day. She knows because she’s had the same thing happen, until she was rescued from a battle and a blood transfusion took the power from her. Now, she coaches Cage to use his skills. 

Fun Fact: Blunt had to adopt a workout regime to build muscle for Rita’s armor and weapons, and she was pregnant during filming.

Edge of Tomorrow is available with Hulu.

Based on the hit novel by Paula Hawkins with a screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson and directed by Tate Taylor, The Girl on the Train reveals another facet of Blunt’s talent. Her character, Rachel, is a lonely, angry woman whose drinking is out of control and who is still fixated on her manipulative ex, Tom Watson (Justin Theroux). He’s remarried to Anna (Rebecca Ferguson), and they have a new baby. Every day, during her commute to the city by train, Rachel observes the Watsons’ home and that of their neighbors Scott (Luke Evans) and Megan (Haley Bennett). 

Scott and Megan become idealized in Rachel’s imagination until she sees Megan kissing a strange man on her balcony. Far from being an ideal couple, Scott is aggressive and controlling, while Megan is dishonest and addicted to sex. When Megan is reported missing, Rachel suspects murder, but her addiction and depression make her an unreliable witness, and the police view her as a possible suspect. Discovering the truth will be her redemption and road to recovery.

The Girl on the Train is available with Hulu.

Blunt’s next film, The Fall Guy, tells the story of stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), who is past his prime but unexpectedly hired when leading man Tom Ryder disappears from the set of a mega-budget studio movie. The director is his ex, Jody Merino (Blunt), and he becomes involved in the search for the missing actor to save her movie. If it sounds familiar, it’s based on an adaptation of the original 1980s TV series. The film was directed by David Leitch and written by Drew Pearce. 

The Fall Guy premieres at the tech, film, music, education, and culture conference SXSW 2024 in Austin, TX, and will be shown at theaters in May 2024.