The “vile” director Emily Blunt can’t stand: “He was really cruel”
These days, Emily Blunt will usually have first refusal on any scripts that come her way, and even if she doesn’t, it’s highly unlikely that the actor will have to audition for anything anymore.
That’s what happens when you’ve spent two decades building a reputation for yourself in Hollywood, pulling your weight in a string of hit movies, and becoming a fixture of the awards circuit. Obviously, it’s entirely different for someone in the earliest stages of their career.
Having been obsessed with Jaws for as long as she can remember, Blunt has recently fulfilled her ultimate dream by working with Steven Spielberg on his upcoming sci-fi blockbuster, Disclosure Day, where she no doubt pestered him with plenty of questions about her favourite film of all time.
It’s a far cry from where she was in the early 2000s, before she’d even made her screen debut with a supporting role in the 2003 made-for-television feature, Boudica, when she auditioned for the veteran Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, hoping to secure a role in his small-screen adaptation of The Lion in Winter.
Starring Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart in the lead roles, the six-time Emmy-nominated historical drama would have been one of Blunt’s earliest roles had she landed the part. She didn’t, and with the benefit of hindsight, she was glad that she didn’t, because the filmmaker sounds like a proper arsehole.
“He was really cruel in the audition, and loved taking me down a peg or two,” she told SAG-AFTRA. “It was a very misogynistic vibe, and I just remember feeling like a shell of my former self by the time I came out. That one stands out to me as one that was horrible, because you just feel so reduced.”
Summarising her feelings on Konchalovsky, she wasn’t one for holding back. “I should just say he was vile,” she added. “Really horrible.” She wasn’t even auditioning for a major role, either, but a minor part as a young lover of Stewart’s Henry II, but the director still couldn’t find it in himself to not treat her like shit.
Unsettling auditions were a recurring trend of Blunt’s attempts to wedge her foot in the door, with Paweł Pawlikowski, who directed her first feature-length outing in 2004’s My Summer of Love, suggesting that she imagine catching her father shagging his secretary to help aid her performance when she read lines.
Despite making such an unusual request, the Academy Award nominee looks back on that experience with fondness, as opposed to her recollections on Konchalovsky, who she considers a nasty piece of work.
