Recently, it seems that many have been seeing Emily Blunt in a different light. Over the weekend, the actress was in Toronto for the TIFF premiere of her new movie Sicario. Here, Blunt plays an FBI agent who is thrown into a top-secret mission involving a bunch of Mexican drug cartel leaders.
Not only is the actress taking on a “strong” role in the film, she gets to run around with a gun. And in Hollywood, that changes people’s perspectives. Between this turn and her performance in Edge of Tomorrow, it seems that Blunt’s name has begun popping up in rumors regarding some big-budget action movies and this is something she is rather hesitant to accept.
The topic of strong leading roles for women isn’t anything new, and is a topic George Clooney has become rather vocal about. However, Blunt is torn on the idea of being the next action star as she told IndieWire, “that means I have to be in the gym all the time. I don’t want to do that.” The actress further explained her mixed feelings about this newly anointed action hero title:
I have a complicated and mixed reaction being anointed action heroine, because I also feel that it’s not quite right to associate toughness with wielding a gun in two pictures, which has sort of happened now, that’s sort of the reaction. I don’t think Josh [Brolin] and Benicio [del Toro] are being told, “wow, you play such a strong role.” The definition of strength to me is something that I’m interested in hearing, why people seem to think that gun-wielding and punching a guy is super-strong. I guess because we just don’t see it in films, I think that’s why there’s the reaction to it.
Whether she is willing to delve a bit more into the action genre, Emily Blunt’s talents shone through for director Denis Villeneuve to pick her for the role of Kate Macer. And if you think it was Edge of Tomorrow that drew him to the actress, it wasn’t. The director still hasn’t seen the Tom Cruise flick. Instead, it was her turn as a “bonnet wearing queen” in Young Victoria that sent Villeneuve knocking. If that doesn’t show the actress’s range, I’m not sure what does.
Currently, Blunt is prepping her next non-action movie role as alcoholic Rachel Watson in The Girl on The Train, based on the Paula Hawkins novel. Still, whether she likes it or not, her name is now included on the short list of other action roles for films like Marvel’s Captain Marvel. While she insists that she hasn’t heard of any such rumors, she talks a bit further about the lack of more “strong” gun wielding women in big budget movies and it all comes down to the four women who can believably do a proper push-up, or something:
I think it’s because the list is very short, because we don’t see women in these kind of roles. So I think as soon as you do a role like that, like Charlize did or I did, or Rebecca’s done — there’s like four of us or something. And Jen Lawrence. So I feel like us four, we get talked about — and Angie, Angelina. So it’s a list of like, four women who are going to be considered for those kind of roles. So I think that’s why the rumors happen, because they’re like, “who else? Surely not another girl can wield a gun,” you know what I mean? “A woman doing push-ups? There’s only one who can do that.”
But what about that Edge of Tomorrow sequel? What about that, I ask you!?
(Via IndieWire)
