Entertainment
Emily Blunt needed ‘lots of tequila’ for ‘deeply emotional’ scene with co-star in The English-Paul Simper-Entertainment – Metro
Blunt says she loves playing characters ‘with a secret’.
Emily Blunt as Cornelia Locke, who seeks to avenge her son’s death (Picture: Diego López Calvín/Drama Republic/BBC)
Watching Emily Blunt’s transformation from rom-com favourite to kick-ass action heroine has been an unexpected delight.
Sicario and Edge Of Tomorrow started the ball rolling – but it was her turn as a mother protecting her family from monsters in A Quiet Place that truly granted her a licence to thrill. And in The English, an epic Western and a rare foray into television, she shows off the best of both phases of her career.
In it she plays Englishwoman Lady Cornelia Locke, who arrives in the American Midwest determined to hunt down the man she believes killed her son.
Initially a fish out of water who steps off the stagecoach in her most impractical finery, she grows into a force of nature – resilient, wily and as lethal as Uma Thurman’s Bride in Kill Bill. It’s no surprise to hear that she said yes to the script before she had even finished reading it.
‘I was completely captivated by it,’ says Blunt. ‘Hugo [Blick, the writer] sent me the pilot and I knew after the first couple of pages I was doing it. I love a character with a secret, where there’s a mystery,’ says Blunt. ‘She just felt so surprising for me.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
‘I love a character with a secret, where there’s a mystery. She shows up in this brutal, masculine dust bath of a world and seems unprepared for the journey ahead. There are so many incredible questions that hit you.’
Of course, any good Western needs an enigmatic and charismatic new star to ride into town and The English certainly has that in Chaske Spencer, who plays Eli Whipp, a Pawnee ex-cavalry scout who gets caught up in Blunt’s bloody tale of revenge – and also makes amends for the dodgy casting decisions once accepted in films.
‘I was around at a time when a lot of native roles weren’t played by Native Americans,’ says Spencer, whose heritage is Lakota, Nez Perce, Cherokee, Creek, French and Dutch. ‘You just had to sit on the sidelines and hope you got a supporting role. This was totally different. It was a romantic lead too, which I had never played before, so it was basically all the things as an actor that you want. I was nervous but extremely excited.’
Lady Cornelia meets a love interest amid the chaos (Picture: Diego López Calvín/Drama Republic/BBC)
Blunt promptly doffs her ten gallon hat and recalls Spencer seizing his moment.
‘I will never forget his reading,’ she says. ‘It was like the air changed in the room. You’re meeting Chaske now and you can see that he is the nicest man on planet earth but then it was like watching a schizophrenic. He turned into this incredible character.
‘The stillness and the regality that he had playing this part was so arresting. I remember he left the room and I was like, “Oh my god he’s amazing!” I was so excited that we’d found our Eli.’
Emily Blunt as Cornelia Locke, who seeks to avenge her son’s death (Picture: Diego López Calvín/Drama Republic/BBC)
Cornelia and Eli Whipp, played by Chaske Spencer (Picture: Diego López Calvín/Drama Republic/BBC)
It’s the contrast of The English that makes it so interesting. Yes, it’s a violent tale of revenge but it’s also a love story, an unlikely meet-cute between two people from different backgrounds. If the violence is what draws viewers to it, it will be the romance that keeps them hooked.
More: Trending
There were a few scenes in The English that took their toll on Blunt.
‘A lot of the stuff with Chaske in the finale in episode six, which is deeply emotional, had a big impact on me,’ she says. ‘We needed lots of tequila for that. Well, I did!’
And then there is the scene in episode one where Lady Cornelia is forced to eat prairie oysters as a prelude to all sorts of potential horrors.
‘They were so disgusting,’ remembers Blunt. ‘That scene I shot with Ciaran Hinds he was so funny. Us trying to get through that scene of eating those prairie oysters without laughing was just giddy.’
But on screen that scene translates into just one moment in a series full of cinematic drama.
‘It had that starkness and sparseness of a Western yet I found it heart-stoppingly beautiful at times,’ says Blunt. ‘There was this tender core to the whole thing. Hopefully people won’t be able to stop watching it.’
The English airs on BBC Two and iPlayer.
Entertainment – MetroRead More
