Emily Blunt conquered Mary Poppins fears during

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mily Blunt has revealed that she conquered her fears of singing and flying while filming ‘Mary Poppins Returns’. Emily Blunt conquered her fears while filming ‘Mary Poppins Returns’. The 35-year-old actress used to have a huge fear of singing and flying but revealed she managed to overcome both of those for her performance in the upcoming movie. She told The Hollywood Reporter: “I was particularly challenged by two aspects of the movie, which were the singing and the flying. I’m terrified of both singing and heights. I had to sing while suspended from a great height in this movie. Those days were quite traumatic but I survived and in the end, I felt quite proud. It was a cathartic experience.” Emily has previously revealed that acting helped her overcome her childhood stutter. The star who has Hazel, four, and Violet, two, with her husband John Krasinski - had a speech impediment when she was growing up and she used to focus on “watching and listening” to people because she “couldn’t speak fluently”. She said: “Because I couldn’t speak fluently, I watched and listened. I’d be on the Tube, and I’d wonder about people and invent back stories for everyone. There’s always been a natural desire to walk in the shoes of others. It started quite young, because it was the only tool I had to speak properly. I was that kid, upstairs in my room, trying out stuff in the mirror. But I’d never tell anyone about it. It was always very private.” Meanwhile, filmmaker Rob Marshall revealed he took offering the role to Emily as seriously as a marriage proposal. He said: I guess it was. I didn’t mean it to be. I did think it was a big deal to ask her to play this role so I wanted to set it up in a sort of ceremonious way. “When I said, you know, it’s Mary Poppins, the character and the film, there was definitely silence. But then I heard her inhale with excitement. I knew that, of course, we all had trepidations and fear about how you follow that brilliant first film, but I know how fearless she is and I knew she would say yes. “By the end of the phone call it was a big yes.” ndy Serkis has defended Scarlett Johansson over the ‘Rub & Tug’ controversy. There was an outcry earlier this year when the star was cast as a transgender man in drama movie ‘Rub & Tug’, leading to Scarlett pulling out of the movie but Serkis believes actors should be able to play any role they wish. He told Variety: “I absolutely disagree. I really, vehemently disagree. “Actors should be able to play anything, and that’s why I love performance capture technology. What should be the point is that whatever colour your skin is, whatever shape you are, whatever height you are, whatever your makeup is as an actor, you should have the ability to play anything.” Andy - who admitted he had planned to go back to being a “conventional actor” after portraying Gollum through motion capture in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ franchise - said he wants equal opportunities in the movie industry but he believes in artistic freedom. Speaking about when Peter Jackson asked him to play King Kong, he explained: “I had thought ‘Ok, I’ll be going back into my career as a conventional actor.’ But then Peter Jackson asked me to play King Kong, and that was a real epiphany moment-sort of going, ‘That, for me, is the end of typecasting.’ Of course, equal representation and opportunity is what [the conversation] should be about, but we’re in the art of the imagination.” Meanwhile, Andy has directed ‘Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle’, a retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’ and he believes it is “darker and emotionally more grounded” than the original text. He said: “This version of the story hadn’t been told. People say it’s darker, but it’s emotionally more grounded. It’s complex. I grew up loving the animated original, it’s a beautiful piece of work, but it didn’t have that complex central journey. I always felt that Mowgli was left out of the story, and you enjoyed the antics and buffoonery and the songs and the star turns of the animals.”

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