“I mainlined them into my body”: the 1980s movies Emily Blunt said she “worshipped”
Everybody knows what movie Emily Blunt will always call her undisputed favourite of all time, and that’s never going to change, but the actor is far from a one-film enthusiast.
Any time the opportunity comes even remotely close to presenting itself, you won’t be able to get her to shut the fuck up about Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. As far as Blunt is concerned, it’s the greatest motion picture that has ever and will ever be made, and she won’t hear any opinions to the contrary.
Naturally, it was the achievement of a life and career-long dream when she was hand-picked to play the female lead in the legendary director’s sci-fi flick, Disclosure Day, and while it won’t be remembered as one of Spielberg’s best, Blunt’s performance might be remembered as one of the best of hers.
Obviously, at the very least, Jaws deserves to be considered as one of the finest films ever made, and it’s even higher up the list if the conversation turns to the most influential. As mentioned, though, her tastes expand much further than the seminal 1975 shark attack thriller, including a couple of titles that the Academy Award nominee would have hooked to her veins if she could.
Kramer vs Kramer, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Lives of Others, and The Princess Bride are among her other most adored flicks, and the latter might explain why she’s been involved in so many fantastical productions, even if her track record in the genre is anything but consistent.
Mary Poppins Returns was a solid if unnecessary sequel to a masterpiece, the less said about The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the better, The Adjustment Bureau was as forgettable as they come, and she was forced into Gulliver’s Travels, a decision that’s haunted her ever since.
On the other side of the coin, Looper, Edge of Tomorrow, and the two Quiet Place movies are all great, which can’t be said about Jungle Cruise. A blatant rip-off of many other and much better films, the Disney blockbuster, which was a Pirates of the Caribbean and The Mummy knockoff, also cribbed from a couple of titles that Blunt holds close.
“It was so emblematic of the kinds of films I worshipped as a kid, like Indiana Jones, Romancing the Stone, The African Queen,” she explained. “I mainlined them into my body.” Describing the Dwayne Johnson vehicle as “exactly the kind of film I want to watch,” which inadvertently placed her in the minority.
It wasn’t helped by the pandemic, but neither was it helped by the fact that she and ‘The Rock’ had absolutely zero onscreen chemistry, with Jungle Cruise having its announced sequel quietly mothballed in the face of general apathy, but at least it gave Blunt the chance to get as close as she could to literally mainlining Harrison Ford’s legendary trilogy and Michael Douglas’ 1984 romp into her body.
