Emily Blunt says Stanley Tucci kept calling her out for overdoing it while they filmed The Devil Wears Prada 2, a jab that landed with extra force because Tucci is married to her sister, Felicity Blunt. Speaking at the New York City premiere of the sequel, the 43-year-old said Tucci would tell her, “You’re shameless. Shameless,” whenever they cut.
Blunt said the remark was aimed at “how much I was overacting,” and added that she and Tucci were frustrated the final cut did not give them more scenes together. “Stan and I were so angry that they didn't give us more to do together,” she said, before adding, “If we do another one, they better have us joined at the hip.”
The exchange lands as the sequel moves toward its May 1 release and because the Tucci-Blunt connection runs through the original 2006 film. Blunt introduced Tucci to Felicity Blunt after they costarred in that movie, and the relationship eventually made him her brother-in-law. The new film also brings back other familiar faces, including Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep.
Blunt said she had “way too much fun” making the sequel and that the cast was given free rein to improvise. That looseness, she said, led to scenes collapsing in laughter, especially when she shared the frame with Justin Theroux. “They let us have a free reign to improv whatever we wanted, which was probably a terrible mistake, because we ruined endless tapes,” she said. “A lot of the scenes were unusable because we were laughing so much. He’s heaven.”
She also said the movie was a hit at home. Her husband, John Krasinski, was “thrilled” to see her return as Emily Charlton, and their children, Hazel, 11, and Violet, 9, were just as excited. “My kids are thrilled. My kids' friends are thrilled,” she said. “It's it brings people together. It's like a big old nostalgia bomb.”
The teasing, the improvisation and the family connection all point to the same thing: this sequel is selling more than a return to a familiar role. For Blunt, it is a reunion story, a family story and, judging by her reaction, a movie she expects audiences to show up for on May 1.