Emily Blunt says she is ready for a change of pace after numerous Hollywood projects — including Christopher Nolan‘s upcoming “Oppenheimer” — cut into her personal life in recent years.
The “Devil Wears Prada” star opened up about her latest efforts to strike a balance between work and family before “Oppenheimer” faces off against Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” at the box office next week. Blunt spoke to podcast host Bruce Bozzi for the most recent episode of his “Table for Two.”
“It’s one of those things when people are like, ‘How do you balance it?;’ I never feel like I’m doing it right, you know,’” Blunt said in the episode published Monday. “But this year I’m not working.”
Blunt, who shares two children with “A Quiet Place” co-star John Krasinski, has taken on film and television gigs every year since 2020 — with even more projects on the horizon, including 2024 action film “The Fall Guy.” However, at home, the actor feels she is missing out on important moments with daughters Hazel and Violet.
Krasinski and Blunt married in 2010 and welcomed Hazel in 2014. The couple announced the arrival of Violet in June 2016.
“My oldest baby is 9. Like we’re in the last year of single digits,” Blunt said. “I just feel there’s cornerstones to their day that are so important when they’re little.”
Emily Blunt and husband John Krasinski, seen at the 2023 SAG Awards, share two daughters.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
She added: “I just need to be there for all of them for a good stretch. And I just felt that in my bones.”
Like many working moms, the “Mary Poppins Returns” star said she feels guilty when she pursues her ambitions and has to spend time away from her family. She also said that her Hollywood obligations varied in commitment. While she did not list productions by name, she said she’s not taking on as many “time-consuming” opportunities due to the “emotional cost on me, on the kids, on balance.”
Later in the podcast episode, Blunt admitted she struggles to find a reasonable work-life balance and often sways from one extreme end to another.
“I’ll work too much, then I’ll have a complete reaction against it and an aversion to being on a film set for a long time,” she explained. “Then I’ll want to desperately work again. So I don’t know I do [the balance] moderately.”
Since the British actor broke out in the early aughts, her career has spanned decades and genres. She has also starred in “Gnomeo & Juliet,” “ Looper,” “Sicario” and “Into the Woods.” But Blunt told Bozzi her own children couldn’t care less about her impressive resumé and joked that they “have no desire to watch me in anything.”
“They just want me to be their mom,” she said.