The ‘Sicario’ scene Emily Blunt refused to shoot: “We didn’t agree with it”
While Emily Blunt‘s performance in Oppenheimer and Denis Villeneuve’s interpretation of Dune are still in the forefront of everybody’s mind, their 2015 collaboration will always be noted as an exceptionally high point for their respective careers. An interesting addition to both their fascinating filmographies, Sicario paved the way for their future projects in a lot of ways.
Blunt has taken on intriguing roles in movies such as Looper and A Quiet Place, but the intensity of her work in Sicario is hard to match. She is brilliant as Kate Macer, a highly skilled FBI agent who is sent on a special assignment to dismantle a notorious Mexican cartel.
Her journey as Agent Macer is complex and layered, tracing her psychological machinations as she adapts to the unimaginably cruel and violent world she finds herself in. That process was actually at the front of Blunt’s mind since the conception of the project.
During a conversation with Variety, the actor revealed: “I told him in the beginning, ‘She can’t be in this masculine world trying to act like a man.’ The appeal of playing the part was that in the beginning, you have a character who’s highly skilled but then disintegrates at an accelerated rate over the course of three days. It had to be a delicate balance. I based her on one of the FBI agents I met while doing research. She was really shy but also an incredibly resilient, steely individual.”
Blunt added: “She’s recently divorced, and the lonely apartment you see her in is her new existence. I decided that she’s someone who defines herself solely by her job, and so it’s very hard for her to hold down a relationship. I don’t think she has many friends. She’s kind of a loner. Reggie, her work partner, is the only person she lets in. You see a convivial relationship there. We actually improvised a lot of the stuff between them.”
Sicario was a tough project because of a variety of reasons, especially due to the challenging nature of some of the scenes that demanded a lot from the cast. However, one particular segment was cut from the movie because Blunt refused to shoot it.
While talking to Howard Stern about the production, Blunt explained that the scene was there in the original screenplay, but it was cut because “we didn’t agree with it”. She also clarified that the “we” in that statement referred to her breasts.
The movie isn’t just a serious point in Blunt’s career; it could be seen as the moment things started to really turn in a new direction for the star. Previously fighting against typecasting, her role in the thriller provided a stable base from which to continue a career in acting that wasn’t subjected to flirty and frivolous portrayals. But the role almost didn’t happen at all.
During the same interview, Blunt revealed: “The writer was approached, when he was trying to get the film made, by one financier who said ‘You know, if you make her a dude, I’ll finance it today'”. The host highlights that it would be a big loss to the overall story, and how that was what made the picture new and interesting. “I also think,” she continued,” the fact that you’ve got a woman at the core of this violent world, it kind of magnifies the violence for the audience,” with Stern confirming, “The movie delivers”.
