The two directors Emily Blunt is desperate to work with: “I want the shock factor”
Despite not being a part of the film industry as long as other incredibly popular actors, Emily Blunt seems to take a step up the ladder each year, working through a wide variety of projects. Whether it’s her hidden talent to pick out only the top-tier roles where she can showcase her proven skill or an innate ability to entertain, it’s no surprise that Blunt has become a box office draw in recent years.
Her big-screen debut role can be traced back to the 2004 film My Summer of Love, directed by the renowned Paweł Pawlikowski. As far as first films go, an actor can’t really ask for a better start, with the romantic thriller receiving outstanding reviews and much critical acclaim. Exploring the multi-layered setting of class divide among the elites, the character of Tasmin and her privileged yet neglectful home life allowed Blunt the opportunity for a fantastic first performance full of depth and authenticity. Since then, she hasn’t stopped delivering equally memorable performances, cementing her place among Hollywood’s best.
Not long after her debut, her breakout role came in the modern classic The Devil Wears Prada. Blunt was still a relative newcomer to the industry, but her ability to stand out even against some of the most established names in cinema was, and still is, mighty impressive. As her career unsurprisingly took on new wings after her iconic performance as the coincidentally named ‘Emily’, she went on to work alongside some of the very best filmmakers today, including Denis Villeneuve in Sicario and Christopher Nolan in Oppenheimer, which landed her an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actress’.
But still, as with any actor, there are always certain names you want to collaborate with in some sense throughout your career. For Blunt, two specific figures encapsulate everything she loves most about films. Despite her covering multiple genres, some directors’ styles and methods can’t be replicated in the slightest and fall beyond the bounds of genre to become entities in themselves.
In an interview with Stephen Humpries, Blunt was asked about her future career ambitions, to which she admitted, “There are some directors that I’d like to breathe the same air as them. I loved Wolf of Wall Street so much. I thought it was filthy brilliant. It could have gone on for another three hours, and I wouldn’t have cared.” She continued, “Leonardo was my favourite performance of the year. It was extraordinarily raw, and his ability to be that ugly. It took my breath away. I felt pinned to the couch. I’d love to work with Scorsese.”
Alongside Scorsese, Blunt also expressed her desire to work with another distinct filmmaker, confessing, “I love David Fincher. He likes people to feel uncomfortable. That’s what I like. He’s not an obsequious director. He likes people to feel rocked and very uncomfortable. I like that he doesn’t cater to the audience, because so many films cater to what they think people want to see or what they think people want to feel. That’s why I like movies like Wolf of Wall Street, which is just a spectacle of filth. I want the shock factor.”
Considering the plethora of roles that Blunt has taken on in her career, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to hear her want to work with two of the most impactful creatives in cinema. Much to her delight, the recent announcement that 20th Century has picked up Scorsese’s upcoming crime thriller starring Blunt means that one of her top ambitions will come to fruition. Before that, Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, alongside Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, is the next highly anticipated film for the British actor, releasing October 3rd of this year.
