HER amazing performance in Oppenheimer may have led to an Oscar nomination for Emily Blunt – but it is a brutal scene viewers will never see which today leads her to apologise to co-star Cillian Murphy.
Emily says the pair were filming one of the most tense moments of the movie when director Christopher Nolan told her to slap Cillian’s face over and over again.
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The 40-year-old says: “Sorry about your cheekbone Cillian.
“Poor Cillian. Chris went, ‘Hit him’. And I was like, ‘I don’t know’.
“And Cillian was like, ‘Do it, do it’. Chris was like, ‘He’ll be fine . . . do it’.
“I slapped him then I grabbed him, by the neck really, by the collar.
“I just saw over the course of, like, ten takes that very famous cheekbone became even more prominent — and it’s not even in the movie.”
Emily, who plays Kitty, the wife of Cillian’s physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, says the pair were already tense.
The scene was part of one of the biggest of the film about the American who played a pivotal role in the development of the first nuclear weapons, where she says the intense line: “You don’t get to commit sin and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences.”
Emily explains: “We were losing the light.
“I was aware on the day that we didn’t have long, just slightly aware of it, of the tension building on set.
“And it’s such a challenging scene for Cillian because he has to be sort of gibbering incoherently.
“So you stagger through it in rehearsals and you know it’s going to start ratcheting up the more you do it.”
Emily also admits that her actions away from the camera led to 47-year-old Cillian needing medical treatment during filming in New Mexico too.
Traditionally, movie stars give each other a gift at the start and end of filming.
And as she grew concerned for her co-star’s sleep with such a demanding role, she bought him a “fantastic” pillow.
But she says: “He’s going to kill me for telling this story.
“I was very concerned about Cillian’s sleep when we started shooting because I felt he had a monumental undertaking with this role.
“I thought, like, that’s a good start-of-shoot gift.
“He told me he woke up in the middle of the night and he was so thrilled to fluff himself back to sleep on the pillow, that he sort of threw his head down back on to it and smashed his head open on the bedside table.
“He was luxuriating in it so much he smashed his head open.
“So he came to set and they had to glue his head shut, all because of the pillow.”
At the end of filming Cillian gave her a bottle she “almost killed him with” in another violent scene.
Emily and Cillian have remained firm friends and on March 10 will both be up for Oscars at the ceremony in Los Angeles.
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The blockbuster has nominations in 13 categories, with Cillian up for Best Actor and Emily Best Supporting Actress, her first nomination.
She says: “He was an amazing scene partner.
“I love Cillian, Mr Ocean Eyes, so much. He’s a wonderful friend.
“He’s captivating. He’s mesmerising in this role.
“Everything was such a masterclass watching him.”
London-born Emily — who has also starred in TV’s The English and movies A Quiet Place and its follow-up, plus The Girl On The Train and Sicario — is married to American actor and director John Krasinski, 44.
She is also mum to Hazel, nine, and Violet, seven.
She managed to get through the four-month filming schedule with the help of meditation.
Emily explains “I do transcendental meditation. I love it.
“I started doing it about nine years ago, when my first little one was born, and I was feeling exhausted all the time.
“It’s so efficient at calming the noise for me.
“My team on set called them my psycho naps because I literally can sleep sitting up.
“I’ll just go and say, ‘I’m meditating’, but I always fall asleep.”
And despite appearing in many other hit films, including The Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep, Mary Poppins Returns with Dick Van Dyke and The Wolfman with Anthony Hopkins, the A-lister is still in awe of her co-stars.
She says: “I was very starstruck by Meryl. Maybe the more I got to know her, the more easy I felt.
“I was very starstruck by Anthony Hopkins. He’s so, so magical.
“I’m always very excited to meet certain actors that are heroes of mine.”
She has also struggled filming some scenes for other reasons, such as in Mary Poppins Returns in 2018, when she had to tell director Rob Marshall she could not repeat her first flying scene.
She says: “I’m not great with heights.
“The Mary Poppins entry was the depths of hell for me, it was so frightening.
“I did three takes and Rob is like, ‘OK, we’re going to . . . ’
“And I went, ‘No, I’m done. I’m done now’. And he goes, ‘OK, we got it’.”
‘Inappropriate films’
She also ended up crying on the set of 2014 sci-fi story Edge Of Tomorrow.
Despite three months of twice-daily gruelling workouts to get in peak condition for the role alongside Tom Cruise, the excruciating 85lb space suit she had to wear became unbearable.
She says of Tom: “He’s extraordinary.
“He’s like the Energizer Bunny. I’m like, ‘When do you run out of batteries?’
“He was so wonderful to me.
“It was such a deep dive into action and he confessed two weeks in, ‘This is the most challenging action movie I’ve done’.
“And that was Tom Cruise.”
Acting is all Emily has ever wanted to do.
She says: “I’m so passionate about it that I can’t believe I sound so cavalier in the entry of it, because I’m obsessed with it, and love it, and what the f*** would I be doing now?
“I’m pretty unqualified for anything. I’m the only one in my family who never went to uni.”
Her barrister dad encouraged her love of films at a young age by renting the 1975 movie Jaws from their local video shop.
Emily, one of four children, says: “My dad was always going to Goggle Box video store and getting really inappropriate films for all of us to watch.
“One of my first experiences was watching Jaws at the age of seven.”
She now plans to make movies to help others, and adds: “I was a kid who stuttered really prominently.
“I’ve always wanted to make a movie about one.
“I know they did it with The King’s Speech but maybe something in a different tone, a different world. It’s a plight I clearly understand.
“Maybe it would be a bit traumatic doing it but I’d quite like to play a stutterer.”
But first she will be hoping to give the speech of her life at the Oscars next month.
She says of the nomination: “It really does make me buzz with gratitude. I’m so moved by it.”
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