Emily Blunt has had a career that has traversed genres over the past two decades. She became known worldwide when she appeared in The Devil Wears Prada. Since then, Blunt has been working non-stop. She has acquired numerous award accolades for her roles in The Young Victoria, The Girl On the Train, and much more. Now she’ll be tackling the horror genre in the film A Quiet Place, which she stars in alongside her husband John Krasinski. A Quiet Place premieres in theaters on April 6, 2018.

Screen Rant got a chance to talk to Emily Blunt on press day, where we discussed what drew Emily to the script, the collaborative creative process, and what her favorite superhero would be.

First of all, this movie is brilliant. It’s so amazing.

I read before when John originally showed you the script, you originally thought that, “Oh, I have a friend that would be great to play your wife.” But it was so compelling that you took it upon yourself.

Emily Blunt: Thank you. Oh, good. Thank you.

Absolutely. The one thing I love about this movie is, of course, there are jump starts, but it’s about what I don’t want to happen to the family. I just connect so much to them. It’s so amazing.

Emily Blunt: Well, I hadn’t read his script at that point. He sort of pitched it to me. I was like, “You know who would be great? So and so…” Then I read his script and I was like, “You need to call her because I want to do it.” And we had been protective of each other’s work before and not really wanting to step on each other’s toes and trying to find something to do together is hard because you don’t want the story to just be about the fact that we’re a married couple working together. So, this seemed like such an ambitious, exciting idea that in fact us being married would lend itself to the project.

So, John says that you both came in extremely prepared for this to the point where spoons and plates would be clacking at home. Talk to me about some of that process.

Emily Blunt: Yeah. Thank you

Yeah. Neither can I. And this is a crazy experience I had in the theater, which I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this, where you’re watching the film and it’s quiet but you’re being quiet and you don’t want to make a noise. Like, I was chewing my popcorn and I didn’t want to make a noise so nothing would happen to the family.

Emily Blunt: Well, you know, you just realize how painful it is to live silently, especially if you’re a family like this who have suffered something incredibly traumatic, who live every day in deep fear and there’s so much that is unresolved between them and they can’t resolve it. So, it’s agony for this family to live in the way that they do. I can’t even imagine it.

So when you guys were sitting at home and you guys were maybe throwing around ideas, was there anything that you may have thought this would be terrifying because whatever it may be that helped contribute to his writing process?

Emily Blunt: Yeah. It’s not really a snacky movie. It’s like people open their Skittles and they go [blank stare] and the Skittles I guess were forgotten. That’s what we want though.

One thing that I found about this movie was that it was super innovative. The way you guys both kind of had safe sounds and unsafe sounds. I thought it was brilliant. And one of the things that jumped out to me was how I would try to be in that situation and I think I would die.

Emily Blunt: I mean, he would always pitch ideas with me, but this is very much his baby. He has such fantastic ideas for this, but then I would love coming in and help spitball sequences in what would be effective or what I think the audience would react to or respond to and he was so collaborative. It was wonderfully intimate to go through this together.

Right. So, switching gears for a second, I talked to John about this. He said you guys have both flirted with the superhero genre every now and again and the Fantastic Four is about a family.

Emily Blunt: I think I would die as well. I think I would be gone. I don’t know how you would survive. This is why there is  so few people left.

It is and he says he would love to play Mr. Fantastic and you as Invisible Woman and do the superhero thing.

Emily Blunt: Uh huh. Is it? [laughs]

She is a superhero.

Emily Blunt: Oh, really? Here’s what I think. I’m playing Mary Poppins. She’s my superhero.

MORE: John Krasinski A Quiet Place Interview

Emily Blunt: That’s kind of what I’m going with.

  • A Quiet Place Release Date: 2018-04-06