Emily Blunt and Amy Adams… two acclaimed actresses who have never won any of the big acting awards despite multiple nominations. Amy is currently in some kind of career purgatory where it looks like she’ll never be in an Oscar-bait film again. Emily is different – she was Oscar-nominated for Oppenheimer just last year, and it feels like she’s simply being offered more interesting and varied work. Emily is currently promoting The Smashing Machine, where she plays the real-life girlfriend of UFC fighter Mark Kerr, played by Dwayne Johnson. The movie is getting some buzz, and you never know, Emily could get some buzz too. Emily talked about that and The Devil Wears Prada sequel with Porter Magazine. Some highlights:

Playing Dawn Staples (UFC fighter Mark Kerr’s gf) in The Smashing Machine. While Blunt has played real people before, this is the first time she’s played someone who is still living – but thankfully, the real-life Dawn was generous with her time and, like Blunt, very open to finding a connection. “My empathy for her was vast because it’s a cage, addiction, and she was in it with him. I was really drawn to being her advocate in such a machismo-dominant world. I was very challenged by playing someone who didn’t seem to be the movie version of the girlfriend, and this didn’t seem to be a movie version of a relationship. It was the full weather system. You know you’re gonna have to rip your rib cage open on something like this, and it’s quite scary to put your feet to the fire: am I gonna do it justice? And the other fear is that these people are still living, and you’re holding the beating hearts of their lives on a screen. You just want to do right by these people who have lived through a lot.”

On her friend & costar Dwayne Johnson: “I think this has been life-changing for him. This is a man who’s never allowed to disappear, and it’s so moving for me as his friend, and as an actor, to watch someone discover what they’re capable of. I’ve always felt this about Dwayne: there’s this well of life experience and pain and struggle and resilience and mental fortitude and deep vulnerability that has never been given space to come out. It must be heavy being The Rock; everyone thinks it must be pretty great, but I think it must be heavy, too – and quite a lot to uphold that infrastructure.”

Her personal style: “I drown myself in clothes. I quite like oversized; I like to hide, I like to shroud.” When she goes out, she’ll dress it up – jewelry, a little makeup – but still grounds it all with a pair of sneakers. “I don’t love wearing heels, so getting back to The Devil Wears Prada has been a rude awakening for all of us.”

The impact of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’: “When we made the first movie, none of us expected the meteoric life that it would have and the impact it would have on people. As my husband said to me the other day, this is people’s nostalgia bank. They’ve watched this with their families 50, 60 times; they’ve watched it when their parents are sick; they’ve watched it when they’re sad, when they’ve gone through a breakup. Of course, I meet people who will quote the movie to me, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been hit with a bombardment of the realization of what the movie is to people coming back to the film set. And that’s what we all feel, holy cow. That’s what everyone says, every day: holy sh-t.”

Her co-star Stanley Tucci became her brother-in-law. “So it has deep emotional roots for a lot of us. It’s not just doing a movie. He’s not good for your Devil Wears Prada diet though, because he’s cooking pasta and making me drink martinis with him every night. He was like, ‘Em, do you want some pomodoro pasta?’ I’m like, ‘I do, but I have to be in Dior couture today, so we’ll see.’”

People don’t really know her: “I feel that about everybody – like, I’m here talking to you, but I don’t know what you look like in your sweatpants, when you’re annoyed, or when you have your period. That’s what I love about the job: for this moment, you get to lift the valance on people, and make space for figuring out who people really are. Certainly, people in the public eye, we’ve all been increasingly trained to hold cards closer to our chest. And yet, I do feel in a lot of the people I work with and people I know, there’s this almost deep desire to be known, but there’s a fear of being known because of backlash. So it’s a tricky balance between really wanting people to know you, but being fearful of it, too.”

[From Porter]

I don’t drown myself in clothes, but I love boxy, oversized clothing. I love wide-legged pants and an oversized t-shirt or sweater. That sh-t looks terrible on me though. The thing about the Devil/Prada sequel is that I STILL don’t know the plot. I’ve seen tons of set photos, of course, but I find it interesting that no plot points have leaked at all. I’m dying to know how the gang gets back together. It better be good too – people love the first movie so much, so if the sequel is just a thrown-together mess with zero plot, people will be mad as hell. What she says about The Rock is lovely and compassionate – she really loves that man. It’s pretty sweet.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of Porter.