Emily Blunt Biography
In a film as rich with larger-than-life performances as “The Devil Wears Prada,” English actress Emily Blunt managed to steal every scene she was in from cinematic veterans Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci with her icy portrayal of Streep’s high-strung senior assistant in the 2006 film.
Born in Feb. 23, 1983 in London, England, the proper British lady was one of four children in a family headed up by her barrister father and teacher mother. While growing up, she excelled at singing and playing cello, as well as horseback riding. In her teens, she switched her focus, studying acting in London and beginning her long history of playing strong, confrontational young women, starting with her memorable turn as Juliet in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” at the Chichester Festival in 2002. Previous to that, she had made her stage debut opposite Dame Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall’s production of “The Royal Family” in 2001.
Making her foray into television on the 2003 UK television series “Boudica,” she played warrior queen Alex Kingston’s daughter (the series was broadcast on PBS in the United States). More television roles followed, including the fifth wife of Henry VIII, Catherine Howard, opposite Ray Winstone in the title role of “Henry VIII” (2003, Granada Television), and a spoiled socialite who meets an unpleasant fate while on her Eygptian honeymoon in the Agatha Christie thriller, “Death on the Nile” (2004, A&E).
Blunt’s big breakthrough came shortly thereafter with the independent feature “My Summer of Love” (2004), in which she played a manipulative young woman who becomes involved with a former prison inmate. The BAFTA-winning film shone the spotlight brightly onto Blunt, leading to the inevitable shift toward more substantial roles in larger productions. She played a vestal virgin with psychic abilities in the overripe ABC historical miniseries “Rome” (2005), and gained more positive reviews when she starred opposite Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill in the Australian film “Irresistible” (2005), in which she played a young woman whom an overworked Sarandon believes is attempting to seduce her husband (Neill).