10 hot stories, including how Mary Poppins changed Emily Blunt, Angelina calls a truce, and luxe loungewear for Christmas
‘MARY POPPINS HAS ALREADY CHANGED EMILY’ S STORIE Emily Blunt will hit screens next week in the biggest role of her career – as everyone’s favourite nanny, Mary Poppins. Jonathan Dean profiles a woman about to become as A-list as the very Hollywood compa
FOR A WOMAN from Wandsworth in South West London, Emily Blunt has a lot of very famous friends. We’re talking hanging out on yachts with Jennifer Aniston and having dinner with George Clooney (who lent her his Lake Como holiday home for her wedding in 2010).
British people never look as well known as the Hollywood stars they hang out with – for many, Emily is still the actress first known for starring in My Summer Of Love. But that’s about to change. This month, she is taking on her greatest role yet: as Mary Poppins.
I have met Emily twice to interview her for The Sunday Times. First in September 2016 for The Girl On The Train, and, most recently, in March, for the excellent horror film, A Quiet Place, directed by her husband John Krasinski. Back then, months ahead of Mary Poppins Returns, she was calm about the catapulting of her status. She joked that her eldest child, Hazel, would reject her take on the super-nanny, given the fouryear-old is a ‘Julie Andrews creep fan’. But, mostly, she was relaxed.
Because that’s who she is. She has innate confidence in her career, which has skyrocketed since The Devil Wears Prada in 2006. Before that, there was stage work with Judi Dench, a mentor, and various small films, but the past decade has seen Emily work with Toms Hanks and Cruise, plus Meryl Streep, twice. Both times I met the actor, she was good company, laughing a lot, but in the 18-month gap – the time, not coincidentally, she’d been filming Poppins – I noticed a change. Still friendly, but more closed off, a little less free in herself.
With increased success, it seems, comes more professionalism. After a Republican debate in 2016, soon after getting dual citizenship in
the US, Emily joked that her decision ‘was a terrible mistake’. It did not go down well. ‘I’ve been bitten in the ass before,’ she told me last time we met, ‘and have decided I don’t need to talk about that stuff.’ Basically, she has made it and, in a jittery world where one misplaced opinion can end a career, doesn’t want to mess this up.
‘She started off acting thinking she might get roles in BBC period dramas,’ an insider reveals. ‘So to be one of the biggest stars in Hollywood is crazy to her. As for her own fame, Emily has had a decade to find her feet and figure out what she wants. She credits John for retaining normality. They don’t try to build their brand: they work, go home and then they have a glass of wine.’
It’s all about the acting then, darling, and Poppins is the role that will define her. She is playing the nanny as ‘vain, imperious, weird’, taken more from PL Travers’ novels than Andrews, which is smart, given that that version is as iconic as Darth Vader. Director Rob Marshall told Emily there would be no film without her. That’s how important she is – a 35-year-old with the power to sink or carry a major film.
It’s some boost for a woman who used to suffer from such a bad stammer that she could barely hold a conversation. ‘She has made sure that she mentions it in interviews,’ says the insider. ‘She wanted to help anyone who had the same issue, because she had felt alone trying to overcome it. It was acting that saved her.’
Her peace now – apart from the glow that comes with international success – is found in family. Off-duty, she is happiest spending time with her sister Felicity in Barnes, West London, when she’s in town. Her sister’s actor husband is Stanley Tucci, who Felicity met at Emily and John’s wedding.
Filming A Quiet Place with John was not only a smart business decision, as it was produced by Krasinski’s company and made loads of money, it also allowed husband and wife to work together, and spend time with daughters Hazel and Violet, who is two. Apparently only once did they escape to a room for a disagreement, as nobody wants to see these guys fight.
‘She and John are one of the most solid couples in Hollywood,’ says the source. ‘ There isn’t any major actor who doesn’t love them – they get invited on every holiday. But even though they have famous friends, she doesn’t see herself as famous.’ Surely, that won’t last long. ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ is in cinemas from 21 December