Emily Blunt says she's 'out' of a project if she sees three specific words in a script

Emily Blunt is well known for portraying some pretty kick-a** characters in the likes of The Girl on the Train, The Young Victoria and Edge of Tomorrow.

But the 39-year-old actor has revealed if she spots three specific words in a script, it’s enough to cause her to want ‘out’ of a project.

In her latest work for BBC Two’s The English, the London-born actor stars as Cornelia Locke, a woman who embarks on a revenge mission in the 1980s USA and runs into Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer), an ex-American army officer who sets off on his own plans.

But if there was a certain phrase in the script, Blunt may not have taken on the role whatsoever.

In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Blunt said: “I love a character with a secret. And I loved Cornelia’s buoyancy, her hopefulness, her guilelessness.”

“It’s the worst thing ever when you open a script and read the words ‘strong female lead’. That makes me roll my eyes – I’m already out. I’m bored,” she admitted.

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The actor believes that characters attributed to her disliked phrase are expected to have almost no emotion.

She said: “Those roles are written as incredibly stoic, you spend the whole time acting tough and saying tough things.”

But instead, Blunt fell for her recent role in the BBC series after realising that she was a character with more complex emotions.

“Cornelia is more surprising than that. She’s innocent without being naive and that makes her a force to be reckoned with. She startles Eli out of his silence and their differences become irrelevant because they need each other to survive. I thought that was very cool.”

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Elsewhere, Blunt revealed that her brother-in-law, Stanley Tucci, ‘loves’ how he was called a ‘sex symbol’ as a result of a cocktail-making video.

Back in 2020, Tucci took to Instagram to make a Negroni cocktail, in which thirsty viewers - in both the literal and metaphoric sense - caused the video to go viral.

Taking to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Blunt revealed that while Tucci was ‘shocked’ by his new status, he’s certainly pleasantly surprised.

She asked the audience: “Can you believe it?”

“I think he’s shocked. It’s amazing it just took a sort of irreverent video on Instagram that my sister told him to post, and then he became a sex symbol.”

Blunt then explained that her brother-in-law was enjoying the attention, adding: “I mean, yeah!”