British beauty Emily married US actor John Krasinski in an intimate ceremony in Lake Como, Italy, in 2010 and insists she didn’t lose any sleep beforehand – despite a guest list that included Hollywood royalty George Clooney, Matt Damon and her co-star in The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep.

“I didn’t want to have a big wedding. I wanted to keep it really laid-back,” she said.

“I’m quite decisive,” Emily adds. “I’m not one of those people who says, ‘Oh, what about this, what about that?’ I’m just like, ‘That’ll do, that’ll do, that’ll do’, because I just think it’s the day that’s special, not all of the stuff that comes with it.”

Emily is in her native London to promote the new romantic comedy with co-star and close pal Jason Segel.

The How I Met Your Mother funnyman – who plays Emily’s fiancé in the film – turns to her as she finishes speaking about the wedding, a wounded look on his face.

“It’s funny you say that,” he deadpans. “You could have put just a little more thought into the guest list.”

Emily, stony-faced, leans forward and confides in a stage whisper: “Jason wasn’t invited.”

For all his posturing, Jason clearly didn’t have any hard feelings. He and Nicholas Stoller, who co-scripted and directed The Five-Year Engagement, wrote the role of British academic Violet with Emily in mind, and his real-life rapport with the actress transfers brilliantly to the screen.

The film begins with talented chef Tom (Jason) popping the question. The wedding date soon gets postponed though, and cracks begin to emerge after Violet lands a new post in Michigan and Tom quits his job to go with her.

As the big day gets further delayed, the couple begin to wonder whether they are really meant to be together.

Despite the grace and poise which helped secure roles such as Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria, and ballerina Elise Sellas in thriller The Adjustment Bureau, 29-year-old Emily is clearly game for a laugh, demonstrating her gift for slapstick as Violet gets shot in the leg with an arrow, runs into an open car door and performs an impeccable impression of The Muppets’ Cookie Monster during a row.

“Emily’s really capable of anything,” Jason says enthusiastically.

“I’m in awe of everything she can do. She can be elegant, she can be a tomboy, she can be funny, she can be serious, but you always believe what she’s doing. You never feel that she’s ‘efforting’ at anything and it astounds me.”

Emily adds: “We didn’t really want to do that Hollywood gloss of the romantic comedy that we’re used to seeing. We wanted to make it really real and accessible and naturalistic, kind of messy.”

And the Cookie Monster impression? “The director Nick’s daughter gets him to do silly voices sometimes at the most inopportune moments, like when he’s in a talk with his wife and she’s like, ‘Do the silly man voice’,” Emily explains, smiling.

“So I think that’s where the idea came from, and what I love about it is the silliness of the voices and how funny it is to see two people arguing as Cookie Monster and Elmo. It undercuts the emotion and the earnestness of the scene.”

Since her big break playing the ice-cold office bitch in The Devil Wears Prada, Emily has taken on a wide variety of roles, from Ewan McGregor’s love interest in Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, to voicing a garden gnome in animated movie Gnomeo & Juliet.

Upcoming films include the sci-fi war flick All You Need Is Kill alongside Tom Cruise, and futuristic thriller Looper, with Bruce Willis.

With such a busy schedule, Emily clearly values her downtime with husband John, star of the US version of The Office.

The pair met in 2008 and now live in Los Angeles. After the A-list wedding, everyday life for the couple sounds low-key.

“At the moment I get chunks of time off, which we spend together,” says Emily. “It’s also nice to have a shared understanding of what each other does.”

The down-to-earth actress – who ensures her US home is well stocked with Marmite – seems unlikely to ever succumb to Hollywood diva behaviour.

“I have great friends,” she muses. “And I think you’ll always remain grounded if you wash the dishes every day and buy your own toilet paper.”

Emily is keen to “keep mixing it up”, appearing in both blockbusters and indie films. As well as the romcom with Jason, this month she can also be seen in the new low-budget film Your Sister’s Sister.

It’s a comedy drama; Emily plays a woman who invites her grieving ex-boyfriend to recuperate in her family’s cabin, only for him to drunkenly get involved with her gay sister.

“I like the variety out there,” she says. “Your Sister’s Sister was made for no money and I think those experiences are really valuable – the collaboration and the sort of element of, who knows how this will turn out?

The Five-Year Engagement is in cinemas now. Your Sister’s Sister is released on Friday, June 29.

Emily Olivia Leah Blunt was born on February 23, 1983, in Roehampton, south-west London, to QC Oliver and English teacher Joanna.

She credits “a really amazing teacher” with helping her overcome a childhood stammer by encouraging her to sign up for school plays.

Emily was discovered by an agent at Hurtwood House, a sixth-form college known for its performing arts, and made her professional debut in a musical at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000, when she was still studying for her A-levels.

In 2004, Emily had a breakout role in dark British drama My Summer Of Love, picking up an Evening Standard British Film Award for most promising newcomer with co-star Natalie Press.

Actress Emily Blunt gulps, gasps and breaks into a furious blush when Rosemarie DeWitt, playing her stepsister, reveals an embarrassingly intimate secret at the dinner table in director Lynn Shelton’s largely unscripted Your Sister’s Sister. The comedy, which was a hit with its world-premiere audience at TIFF last September, arrives in theatres Friday.

“I cried with laughter,” said Blunt, adding she told Shelton, “‘You are never getting that on camera!’ I was so mortified.”

“She (Rosemarie) sprang it all on us,” Shelton said. “It was something that happened to a friend of hers and she never forgot.”

Shelton and two of the film’s three leads, Blunt and Mark Duplass — who both seem to be everywhere onscreen these days — shared the story with the Star at TIFF the day after Your Sister’s Sister premiered.

Shelton, who first directed Duplass in the also largely unscripted Humpday, lets her three characters loose at a secluded cabin in Your Sister’s Sister. Duplass and Blunt play best friends Jack and Iris. Jack’s planned retreat at Iris’ family cottage to help mourn his late brother isn’t so secluded when he finds Iris’ half-sister Hannah (DeWitt) has already arrived to heal her broken heart with the help of a bottle of tequila. When Iris suddenly shows up the following morning, things get very complicated.

The movie began with an eight-month process to work out back stories, followed by a 70-page “scriptment,” said Shelton. This outline of who says and does what helps guide actors through the story.

“Some scenes were completely written and they (the actors) were able to pick and choose if they wanted to use the page,” Shelton explained. “Other scenes were mapped out but there was no dialogue. I said, ‘This is the emotional turn that needs to take place,’ and then it’s a matter of writing it and seeing how are we going to get to these places.”

Shelton worked with two cameras and let her actors decide what to say to each other to move the story along.

“She captures everything so you can go back where you started from,” said Blunt. “There’s never any pressure to re-improvise improv because that’s the most crummy thing to do.”

Duplass, one of the founders of the mumblecore style of low-budget, lightly scripted films with writer-director brother Jay Duplass, said he had a ball working in this “estrogen-laden world.”

“It is the greatest,” he told Shelton. “You just put me in a love triangle sandwich. My household is my wife and my 3-year-old daughter (a second daughter was born in May) and it is the greatest thing in the world and it’s no secret as a North American male, I have a high level of estrogen running through me already.”

Blunt and DeWitt met the day before shooting but had spent time on the phone and emailing to form an “accelerated friendship,” as Blunt described it. Soon they were able to communicate with the kind of sister shorthand siblings have, snuggling up in bed together to whisper secrets.

“I felt I had a really nice chemistry with her and it was easy sharing the same bed and talking into the night, which is exactly the kind of thing I used to do with my sisters.”

Shelton said the almost-documentary feel of the movie is deliberate and much of it was honestly earned, added Blunt.

“He (Duplass) didn’t know what I was going to say and I didn’t know what he was going to say. I remember having butterflies in my stomach for real. You are constantly in the moment.”

Emily married actor John Krasinski, one of the stars of the US version of The Office, in an intimate ceremony in Lake Como, Italy in 2010, with George Clooney, Matt Damon and Meryl Streep, her co-star in The Devil Wears Prada, looking on.

The reason it was so relaxed was, Emily says, because she didn’t reveal any Bridezilla
“I wanted to keep it really laid-back. I’m quite decisive, not one of those people who says, ‘Oh, what about this, what about that?’ I’m just like, ‘That’ll do, that’ll do, that’ll do’, because I just think it’s the day that’s special, not all of the stuff that comes with it.

“The day should be kind of freewheeling a little, because something could go wrong. You’ve just got to roll with the punches.”

Her other half in The Five-Year Engagement is close pal Jason Segel, who co-scripted the film and wrote the role of British academic Violet with Emily in mind.

The story begins with talented chef Tom (Segel) popping the question. The wedding gets postponed though, and cracks emerge after Violet lands a new post in Michigan and Tom quits his job to go with her.

As the big day gets further delayed, the couple begin to wonder whether they are really meant to be together.

Despite the grace and poise which helped secure roles such as Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria, and ballerina Elise Sellas in thriller The Adjustment Bureau, 29-year-old Emily is clearly game for a laugh, demonstrating her gift for slapstick as Violet gets shot in the leg with an arrow, runs into an open car door and performs an impeccable impression of The Muppets’ Cookie Monster during a row.

“We didn’t really want to do that Hollywood gloss of the romantic comedy that we’re used to seeing,” she says. “We wanted to make it really real and accessible and naturalistic, kind of messy.”

And the Cookie Monster impression?

“The director Nick Stoller’s daughter gets him to do silly voices at the most inopportune moments, like when he’s in a talk with his wife and she’s like, ‘Do the silly man voice’.

“So I think that’s where the idea came from, and I love how funny it is to see two people arguing as Cookie Monster and Elmo. It undercuts the emotion and earnestness of the scene.”

Since her big break playing the ice-cold office bitch in The Devil Wears Prada, Emily has taken on a wide variety of roles, from Ewan McGregor’s love interest in Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, to voicing a garden gnome in animated movie Gnomeo & Juliet. Upcoming films include the sci-fi war flick All You Need Is Kill alongside Tom Cruise, and futuristic thriller Looper, with Bruce Willis.

While she was at Hurtwood House, a sixth-form college known for its performing arts, she was spotted by an agent and made her professional debut in a musical at the Edinburgh Fringe while still studying for her A-levels.

In 2004, she had a breakout role in dark British drama My Summer Of Love – based on Birmingham writer Helen Cross’s acclaimed first novel – picking up an Evening Standard British Film Award for most promising newcomer with co-star Natalie Press.

Emily now live in Los Angeles with her husband, whom she describes as “the funniest man alive”.

In spite of the A-list wedding, everyday life for the couple sounds low-key.

“At the moment I get chunks of time off, which we spend together,” she says. “It’s also nice to have a shared understanding of what each other does.”

The down-to-earth actress – who ensures her US home is well stocked with Marmite – seems unlikely to ever succumb to Hollywood diva behaviour.

“I have great friends. And I think you’ll always remain grounded if you wash the dishes every day and buy your own toilet paper.”

Emily is keen to “keep mixing it up”, appearing in both blockbusters and indie films. As well as this week’s romcom with Jason, next week she will be seen in the low-budget comedy drama, Your Sister’s Sister.

She plays a woman who invites her grieving ex-boyfriend to recuperate in her family’s cabin, only for him to drunkenly get involved with her gay sister.

“I like the variety out there,” she says..

“I don’t think you can strategise the jobs that you do. You’ve just got to pick what you love.”

After Ben’s mutilated body is found and more people are found murdered in a similar manner, Gwen starts to get closer to Lawrence and falls in love with him, even as Lawrence becomes a prime suspect in the murders. British actress Blunt recently sat down to talk about her role in “The Wolfman” at the film’s Los Angeles press junket. She also shared her thoughts on what horror films scared her the most, as well as the experience of playing a ballerina in the 2010 sci-fi thriller “The Adjustment Bureau,” starring Matt Damon.

How was it to working with Benicio Del Toro?

It was intense! No. He’s awesome to work with. He’s such a rare actor, in that he has a real unique approach to a scene. He’s exciting to work with, because he’s quite raw and instinctual, so you don’t really know what he will do in the scene. The scene can really take shape and it can dance and shape shift, in some ways. I love working like that because there’s a real openness, and you need a co-star who’s going to play with you in that way. He’s a great guy. We had a laugh on the movie. He’s a lot of fun. He’s a big teddy bear. People don’t know that. [She laughs.]

Has it gotten any easier for you to work in corsets and Victorian costumes?

I don’t know why I managed to go from one corset to another. I don’t know quite how that happened. It was not my intention. But I actually love the physical elements of creating a part and once you’ve got the costumes on, they’re so ethereal and alien and they feel so strange, when you first put them on, that you almost don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to worry about moving differently or standing differently, because it does everything for you.

So I find the costumes quite transporting, particularly if they’re as beautiful as the ones that I’ve gotten to wear. Milena Canonero designed beautiful, exquisite costumes for this film. They were very creative in that she incorporated a lot of animal materials into them, like furs and feathers. It was really cool working with her. Sometimes it can be a bit restraining, but I think it’s good because, particularly with the Victorian era, you want to create those constraints for the implications of what goes on within the world to be relevant. I appreciate doing the dress-up part of it, but I also like to wear jeans and a T-shirt, because then you’re really free.

How was it to work with Anthony Hopkins? Do you have to call him Sir Tony?

No. You call him Tony, and he’s very, very cool. I was riveted by him. I would sit around talking to him between takes, and he’d tell us wonderful stories. He’s a great mimic. I think “riveting” is the right word [to describe him]. When you’re acting with him, he’s got such a simplicity to what he does. He’s quite an economical actor, in a way, but then he puts layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, and he’s simmering beneath the surface. It’s masterful to watch. It’s distracting. I’d watch him in the scene and be like, “Oh, sh*t! I forgot my line!”

Can you talk about working in the horror genre and your familiarity with it? Are you a fan?

It’s funny because I had never really done the horror genre, and certainly not the monster movie genre, and I love doing something I’ve never done before so that was cool. Benicio is the freak about the horror movies. He is so well-researched. He’s seen every one of them 20 times. But I was a really nervous child, so I never wanted to go watch horror movies. I remember the first one that stands out for me that I watched was “The Exorcist” and I didn’t sleep for weeks.

And then “Jaws” as well, which is kind of a horror movie, in some ways. I’m still a victim of Spielberg. I have a real problem with the ocean and with the depths of the unknown. Maybe that’s what’s so fascinating about monster movies. You’re dealing with a supernatural element and the unknown forces. Maybe that’s why people are so fascinated by the Ouija board, whether ghosts exist and where we go when we die. I think that’s why these movies will always be so relevant and of interest to people. We just don’t know.

Do you feel you had enough time to explore the acting in this film, with all the effects that were going on around you?

Yeah, I did because it was a very collaborative process with Joe [Johnston, the director of "The Wolfman"] and with Benicio and Anthony. If I’d simply been there to run and scream, I wouldn’t have done the movie. I thought the relationships were really tensely written, and we actually collaboratively cut a lot of the dialogue, particularly in the scenes between Benicio and [me], to try to capture that essence of forbidden love in a more subtle way, so it’s not so on the nose. I never wanted it to be that she callously lept from one brother to the other with the greatest of ease. That would be bad. People would be like, “She’s a slut.”

I feel like when you’re doing a monster movie, there’s an element that you take second place to and you react to that. It’s not acting. You’re reacting, the whole way through a movie like this. But, I was lucky enough to work with people who were willing to make changes that were beneficial. To speak personally about my character, I wanted to make her more pro-active and less passive, and Joe was very cool, in that way, and allowed for that to happen. It was a really atmospheric set as well. The sets were incredible and we had plenty of time. I never felt overwhelmed by the werewolf.

How much do you think Gwen is attracted to Lawrence as a man, and how much of it is that primal beast that’s inside of him?

I don’t think she recognizes the primal beast. I think that she’s quite a scientific girl. So when village gossip ruled the world as it did in Victorian times, she was probably the one studying Darwin. That’s when all of Darwin’s theories were coming out. She always saw the man. You can’t help who you’re attracted to. I don’t know if chemistry or attraction is something you can ever crunch numbers on. It’s a rather ethereal thing. You’re either attracted to someone or you’re not.

And because she was so helpless in being able to save her fiancé, and she could do nothing, it became her mission to do something for this man who was in hell. She could see that he was in hell. He was in torment. He was actually quite a soft man and a quiet man, and I think she was more attracted to how enigmatic he was rather than this darkness dwelling within him. I don’t think she really chose to recognize that side of him while everyone else was raving about it.

What have the last couple of years been like for you, with all of the high-profile projects you’ve been doing?

I don’t know if it’s felt like that. It’s been really fun. I’m a huge fan of doing indie movies. I think they’re some of the best scripts out there. But there are also some great scripts for more high-profile films. “Gulliver’s Travels” was attractive to me because it was really smart and witty. Anything that’s high profile and is of a bigger budget that’s good, I’d be willing to look at.

But this last couple of years has been a real ride, and I think I’m ready for a break. It’s a surreal life, on a film set, whether it’s a high-profile movie or not. I’ve gotten to work with some of the best actors around and I feel like ["The Wolfman"] was no exception. I’ve admired these two guys [Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins] for so long.

And then, working with Matt Damon [on "The Adjustment Bureau"] was a real experience. The magic of the job is the camaraderie that you have on those film sets and the accelerated friendships. You’re like a dysfunctional family for a while, and then you say goodbye. But, I’ve really enjoyed all the movies I’ve been a part of. They’ve still been very different from each other. So as long as I can keep doing roles that are different. I love the shape-shifting part of the job. I don’t want to lose that, no matter if it’s big budget projects or not.

What was it like to play a ballet dancer in “The Adjustment Bureau”?

It was tough! It was real tough. I was in boot camp for a long time. It was the hardest and scariest thing I’ve ever had to do. It’s an incredibly exposing experience to go through because it’s all about physical perfection and accuracy, and I don’t know if I’m a very meticulous person. With my job, I’m used to turning up on a film set and being like, “Oh, I think I’m OK. I get what I’m doing, but I don’t really know what I’m going to do until I do it.”

It’s a far more open, emotional experience, whereas dancing is all about physical perfection and striving for that. I found that really frightening and I felt like an idiot some days, when they were trying to teach me these new moves. I was like, “I can’t do that.. I can’t do that. There’s no way I can spin three times and not fall on my ass.”

But I think it’s a wonderful thing to go through, when you challenge yourself to do something that frightens you, every day, and there’s some kind of end result. It was contemporary ballet. Thank God it wasn’t traditional because I would have been screwed. It sort of reminded me of acting, in a way. I remember one of the dancers said to me, “What I love about this kind of dance is that everything you go through in life can come out in the way that you dance, and this is the kind of dance that allows for that.” And it reminded me of what I feel about the job I do. It was a wonderful experience, but it was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, for sure.”

Do you ever keep any of the skills that you learn for a movie or do they fade away after you’re done with a movie?

I’ve now built a ballet bar in my house. No. I don’t know. Sometimes. I think it always stay with you a bit. When you’ve soaked up that much information, it definitely stays with you. I now know how to horse ride side saddle. I’ll always have that. I’ve heard of people who have learned piano for something and they’ve carried it on. I know that that happens a lot. But to be honest, it was so grueling, all of the dance, that I don’t know if I’d put myself through that. I really like to eat, and that’s part of the downside of learning how to dance and trying to look like these dancers who are like sculptures. They look incredible.

What was the most difficult aspect of making “The Wolfman”?

I really found the action scenes in those clothes really tricky. During the scene where the Wolfman jumps on me and Hugo [Weaving] and I have to get up, he actually yanked my skirts down, as I was trying to get up. That was probably the hardest stuff we had to do. It’s a combination of all the physical parts of the costumes and how restrictive they are, and trying to get that relationship and love story right without it appearing like she’s callous.

And how do you really react to a werewolf? What would you really do, if you came across a werewolf and were confronted by one? That was also something where you have to really use your imagination. I don’t have anything to draw from. I’ve never seen one and I don’t know anyone who’s ever seen one.

I would ask people that I knew had been in life-threatening situation, “What happened? What did you do?” And they all said the same thing. They either fainted or they said nothing — their vocal chords literally locked out because they were so frightened. A few people I’ve known have literally been so frightened that they don’t utter a word. Their brain melts and they hit the deck. I think that’s funny.

“The Wolfman” is full of metaphors for man’s relationship with nature, and the film unfolds in the Victorian era of Darwin, when science gave us a new understanding of human behavior. Did you talk about the philosophy of it at all or was it just a scary movie to you?

It’s a combination of both. Actors love to talk, so we did sit around and talk about certain things, like our feelings on the metaphorical sense of this film and the darkness in everyone, how much you allow that to thrive, how you control it and whether we all feel we’ve got a little beast inside of us. We did talk about that. And all of us read up about the period and everything that was going on.

There was also an element we discussed, which was that this was the Victorian era where sexual repression was very prominent. These ghost stories about werewolves and vampires were incredibly relevant to that time, when everyone was feeling that they had to repress the beast and repress the instincts. It was an interesting setting for the film to place it in Victorian times. I think it worked really well. But then we knew we were in a monster movie, and we had to create candy at the same time. It’s a combination.

Do you have a preference when it comes to working on sets and being immersed in the world, or working on location?

I love being on location. I think you form a really close bond with people on location. When I was doing “Sunshine Cleaning,” Amy Adams and I lived next door to each other and we had an amazing time. We cooked for each other every night. It is a very bonding experience to be somewhere, like Albuquerque, where I’d never been before. I like both. I like to change it up. If did the same thing all the time, I’d probably get bored. They both have different highs and lows.

Were there any your scenes in ‘The Wolfman” that were cut out of the film that could end up on the DVD?

There was, yeah. There’s only one scene that I miss, but that’s because I’m a real fuddy-duddy about seeing the characters and human behavioral stuff. I’m sure most people are like, “Let’s get to the bite,” but I love all the setting up of the relationships. So I think there was one scene with the three of us [Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and I] that was cool, but I don’t really think much was cut out of it.

Do you have an inner beast yourself?

I don’t know. I feel like it’s dwelling. It hasn’t come out yet. It’s lying dormant. I think someone’s got to really piss me off. It’s weird because I see people where I think they wolf out a bit. When you see people fighting in the street, their faces look weird. When you see guys fighting, their faces contort. That’s the beast coming out, when people’s faces look weird, and they’re so angry and raging, and all of those instincts are just flying out of you. But I’ve never been in that state yet. I’ve never been in a fight.

Do you get irritated when you have to drive in Los Angeles?

I do. I get mildly irritated driving here, but people are probably more irritated with me, because I’m still a little tentative because I’m on the other side of the road. So I’m sure I irritate everyone much more than they could irritate me.

How do you like living in Los Angeles?

I love it. I have lot of British friends here as well. I have wonderful friends. I always feel kind of peaceful when I come to L.A. I don’t really associate it with work. A lot of people see it as this is where you work. I haven’t worked here in a while. It’s usually in New York or London. I always feel like it’s my “down time” place.

Los Angeles Confidential: Tell me a little about the movie you’re shooting in New York City.

Emily Blunt: It’s called The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon, and it’s based on a Philip K. Dick short story that has a sci-fi element to it. But it’s supposed to be a modern love story about two people destined to be against the system—the slightly big-brother-esque system. My character happens to be a world-class contemporary dancer, and that’s hilarious because I cannot dance.

LAC: Have you had dance training for the part?

EB: Yeah. Every day I’m in dance boot camp. It’s a wonderful idea to have the girl be a dancer, but it’s very high maintenance. I’m really loving the challenge. I’m training with this amazing ballet company, and it’s been a real awakening for me when it comes to fitness. Everything hurts all the time.

LAC: In The Young Victoria, which is released this month, you capture a side of Queen Victoria that perhaps a lot of people don’t know about—her sort of tortured existence becoming a queen so young and then being in a bad marriage. Tell me about the role.

EB: I really felt it was one of those rare parts to play, a character with such gravitas. I loved that the script was really focused on a dysfunctional family more than royalty. I thought it was a fresh look at her and royalty and a more intimate look because you really see the private life. She is a young girl, she is way over her head, and she doesn’t get on with her mother. She’s in love, and she’s a teenager. All of us were on the same page in that we wanted to make [the characters] very real. I thought it was interesting to offer the performance side of her life and the private side.

LAC: What’s so fascinating about your career is the diverse characters you’ve played from The Devil Wears Prada to Sunshine Cleaning and now The Young Victoria. What is it about a character that attracts you?

EB: It really is if they surprise me. It’s hard to specify why I respond to someone, or why anyone responds to anyone in real life. I like complexity, and I like people. People with some kind of inner turmoil going on are always interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a dramatic role. I don’t tend to go for passive characters, and I don’t tend to go for one-dimensional people because I don’t think people really are that way. I like characters who are hard to read—you have to find out who they are.

LAC: You’ve accomplished so much at the young age of 26. How have you managed to stay—for the most part—out of the limelight and away from some of the bad decisions we see a lot of young actresses make.

EB: Well, you wear underwear. That helps.

LAC: Well done, Emily.

EB: And you don’t go to the “scenes.” I’ve never wanted to, and Hollywood parties are not necessarily what I strive to be a part of. They’re really fun, but I think I probably have more fun behind closed doors. I think it’s easy to have balance if you make the choice not to be affected by the invasion [of privacy]. For me it’s a slight invasion, but it’s not huge. I know some people are completely hounded, and that’s certainly not the case for me. I feel very fortunate, and I know it’s a cliché, but I have an extraordinary job, and I know it’s not like any other job.

LAC: Your career started on stage with Judi Dench, which is an amazing place to start. Later you were in a movie with Meryl Streep, and she praised you as one of the best young actresses she’s ever seen. Does that feel surreal to you?

EB: Surreal is completely the word. It is utterly surreal and mildly embarrassing, and I slightly disconnect from myself. It’s a little too much, like my brain farts. I’m very grateful. It’s very cool.

LAC: You’re engaged to the lovely John Krasinski. Can you tell us how the wedding plans are going?

EB: There’s definitely no way I could speak of plans because there literally aren’t any.

LAC: Just one day it will happen.

EB: One day.

LAC: He’s so funny.

EB: He’s so funny it’s painful.

LAC: He seems very down-to-earth. Is that part of what makes it a good relationship?

EB: I think it’s really important to be down-toearth— for everyone to be down-to-earth. I feel that of my friends and my family. I think it’s vital to have that, and I think that’s the way to survive this business, too. If you’re down-to-earth and if you have a sense of humor and irony about things, I think you’ll survive just fine.

LAC: Let’s talk about some of your other upcoming films. You’re doing The Wolfman with Benicio Del Toro.

EB: He’s the best. He’s bonkers in every way that’s right. I had a blast with him. And there’s so much about him that people don’t know, but I love the kind of mystique he’s managed to maintain. I think he’s really extraordinary to watch. He’s very brave. I love people who make a choice that’s left of center—but not for the sake of being weird, just for the sake of being interesting. I love that about him. And he is fiercely bright. Don’t try and outsmart him when it comes to music. You’ll fail.

LAC: You play a damsel-in-distress character.

EB: Oh, I’m so innocent and pure, it’s almost an eyesore. I usually play a bitch, so it’s really fun.

LAC: And tell me about another film you have coming out, Gulliver’s Travels.

EB: I play a princess in it, so this one will be for my future children. It was really too much fun—I love Jack Black. And Jason Segel’s a delight; it was a blast. I got to play someone who’s not really bright, and that was fun—the princess who’s about three steps behind the joke.

LAC: You are pretty good at picking costars.

EB: I’m so lucky with costars. I feel like I’ve worked with people who have their stuff figured out. I feel really lucky. And I learn from them every day— every single day.

LAC: You split your time between London and LA, right?

EB: My family is in London, so it will always be where I’m from and where my roots are, but I’m in LA most of the time now.

LAC: Tell us some of your favorite places to go in LA.

EB: But then I’d be giving away my dive bars. And then they won’t be my dives anymore.

LAC: Okay. Don’t give away your favorite. Give away your second favorite.

EB: I ate at El Compadre Restaurant recently, and I crushed those enchiladas. They were so good. I dominated that food. I inhaled it. And the margaritas are off the charts. I’m gonna recommend that place if you want cheesy Mexican food. It is unreal. And I love AOC, and I think Cafe Stella is great.

“Yes,” I said. “Bacon-wrapped anything is—”

“Awesome. I know.”

A woman after my own heart. And Blunt’s clever summation of the actor-ridden Chateau—“It’s a bit like a drama school party, isn’t it?”—didn’t hurt either.

Over the course of the next hour, the 26-year-old Blunt charmed while discussing her busy year: the just-released Sunshine Cleaning is already a modest indie success, and she has the Martin Scorsese-produced royal drama The Young Victoria yet to come, as well as a high-profile turn opposite Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins in The Wolf Man. The London-born actress doesn’t mind spending promotional duties on the Left Coast; in fact, says Blunt, “I think particularly British people have a sort of faux snobbery about LA. We all secretly fucking love it, believe me.” Once those bacon-wrapped dates arrived, we began by catching up on the few movies this year that don’t star Blunt—their loss.

What haven’t you seen yet that you want to?
Have you seen The Wrestler? I want to see that really bad. I’m so desperate to see it. Is it good?

It’s my favorite of Darren Aronofsky’s films, actually.
[smiling] Surely not more than The Fountain!

Have you seen Che?
No, I haven’t seen it yet. Benicio [Del Toro] sent me an email saying, “There’s a screening of the long movieeeee. You wanna come see it?” I was like, “I can’t, buddy.” I hear he’s stunning in it, and I have every faith that he is. He’s a rare breed, Benicio. He sees the world in a different light. He’s very brave as an actor, and he doesn’t have a false note in his repertoire.

The two of you work together in The Wolf Man. Are you playing another aggressive character in it?
She’s the damsel in distress. I’m a vision of purity in that. Something I definitely haven’t done before! I met with the director Mark Romanek, who was originally attached, and he wanted me to do it. I was a bit tentative about it because it’s a big studio movie, but if I’m going to play the game, I’d rather play it with those two actors, who are extraordinary. I wanted to work with them more than anything, and I really liked a lot of the work that Mark had done in his music videos. He really had an interesting eye, and I thought it would look so edgy and cool and gothic.

And then Romanek fell out, and Joe Johnston came on board very late.
He was brilliant. He was such a calming, stoic figure. It was the most draining film—I’ve never seen a director lose so much weight during a movie. He was a shell of a man by the end of it! Eighteen weeks, really, really hard, lots of night shoots, two weeks to prepare. He was amazing and unflappable.

Promoting Wolf Man led you to your first Comic-Con, right?
I didn’t stay that long. We went in on the third day, and we’d been advised not to go on the third day because by that time, the costumes are really starting to stink! [laughs] We flew in and flew out.

So you didn’t have any amateur Wolverines ask you questions?
We had a couple mini-Darth Vaders. But the questions were mainly directed at Rick Baker, who’s like the king of Comic-Con, and Benicio, who’s known for Sin City. I’m sure there was, like, a lukewarm clap when I came out. But we were so lucky to have Rick. There’s something frighteningly human about the look of the Wolf Man.

When it was announced that Benicio was cast in that role, it seemed right somehow.
Oh yeah. Benicio’s halfway there anyway. He’s lupine-looking! And he milked it.

Tell me about winning the title role in The Young Victoria.
I came in there and I really wanted it. I was aware that I was probably at the end of an elimination process for many other actors [laughs], and I said that to the producers! I was completely aware that everyone wanted that role. I think they thought there was something quite royal about demanding it like that, so they thought they’d go with “the bossy actor.”

When you lobby that hard for a role, do you ever get second thoughts after they hire you?
Oh, it’s one thing to say it, it’s another thing to follow through. I think it’s a very invigorating thing to feel like you’re a fraud, though! It pushes you, it doesn’t limit you. You can have those wavering moments as long as you have a beam of hope that you’ll get there.

Does it seem to you, though, like we venerate English actors in the U.S.?
We’re revered! We must all be related to Shakespeare or something, by the way people react…You can get away with a lot with this accent over here! I can say awful words and they sound OK.

One thing I’m sure you’re not a fan of is our paparazzi. You were recently photographed with your rumored boyfriend John Krasinski inside a Whole Foods.
It’s abusive. It’s an assault. They are effectively stalkers with cameras—in fact, they are only one object away from being classified as stalkers. I don’t really get it that badly, but it does happen. My sister told me she saw something on YouTube of me at this cafe and someone was filming me, and you can hear the camera guy say, “Get a shot between her legs.” And I was like, “When the fuck did I turn into the crotch girl?” Those lenses, man! You can zoom in…

What do you have to do to avoid it?
You don’t go to the scenes. Don’t give them anything, because the abuse I’ve had friends of mine hurled in their direction in order to get someone I love to cry is really shocking.

Just to get a picture?
Just to get a picture. You couldn’t even print it. Off the record… [Blunt leans in and utters a particularly shocking chain of four-letter words. Still, as she’d forewarned, her accent makes the expletives go down like honey.]

Do you worry, as you become more famous, that you’ll become more insulated? Bodyguards, a house in the hills, a staff at your mansion?
I don’t need it. I have no desire to have that. It’s as simple as making a choice to have that or not, for me. Because I’m away so much, I do get a bizarre joy out of going to buy my own loo roll. And I wonder, if you become insulated like that, does your curiosity cease to exist? That frightens me. I don’t ever want to lose being curious. The world is a very beautiful place and you miss everything if you become like that.

Is that part of the price you pay as you become more observed?
Here’s the thing. I think in this town, particularly at those parties, everybody’s so busy being seen that you don’t actually see anyone. I really think it’s as simple as choices, I do. This job can enrich your life in so many ways, but I think it can limit you as well if you become insulated like that.

Does the whole business of snagging, say, a Vanity Fair cover affect you?
I really try to leave that to everyone else. That’s the meat market side.

Does that ever threaten to intrude on what you like about the business?
Yes, because it’s so relevant now. I feel like when I come [to Los Angeles], I worry about things more than when I’m in London. The importance of things here…it’s vital that you meet this person! It’s vital that you do this shoot! It’s vital that you read this scripts. It’s not. It’s really not that vital.

Just wait until you have publicists pushing you for awards season. Getting you out on the circuit, doing Q&As at…
…at old people’s homes? [laughs] I think it’s OK, actually! It does change things when you win an Oscar. You can say it doesn’t, you can shrug it off, but it does. I’ve known even the most down-to-earth actors, friend of mine, who have campaigned the shit out of wanting to get an Oscar. Play the game, then go home and walk your dog. But I think it’s OK to play the game. It’s gross—but as long as you know that!

“There was horrible turbulence. I nearly got ill. I swear that the plane was on its side at one time. I was like `a-a-a-h,”‘ said the 26-year-old Brit, sounding unflappable, as if she were describing having popped down to the local shop.

But those who have seen Blunt in any of her scene-stealing roles – Meryl Streep’s put-upon assistant in “The Devil Wears Prada,” her sexy turn with Tom Hanks in “Charlie Wilson’s War” or her Golden Globe-winning performance as a politician’s neglected daughter in the TV drama “Gideon’s Daughter” – know she is one cool customer.

This year you’ll be able to see the actress in four films. Her latest, “Sunshine Cleaning” (opening Friday), finds Blunt – whom Streep calls one of the finest young actresses she’s ever work with – playing the directionless Norah, the younger sister to recent Oscar nominee Amy Adams’ Rose. The pair, haunted by the death of their mother, have started a business of cleaning up bloody crime scenes.

“Sunshine Cleaning” isn’t the downer it sounds like, though. It’s about family and has offbeat charm and laughs that are helped along by Blunt’s and Adams’ sisterly comfort level. Oscar winner Alan Arkin plays their father.

“We both have sisters,” said Blunt, whose older sister, a literary agent, lives nearby. “So I think that we both understood the dynamic of that bond and how delicate it could be and how close it could be and how much your sister could be the one that could destroy you at the same time and break your heart.”Blunt and Adams, who met while doing “Charlie Wilson’s War,” spent a lot time in Albuquerque, N.M., rehearsing for “Sunshine,” hanging out and eating “a ton of Mexican food.”

“She became my partner in crime,” Adams has said of the experience.

Blunt calls Adams “a great playmate. She was just so much fun and brave with the choices she made. She’s not afraid to look like a complete (expletive).”

A bit of a stoner, Norah is “suffering,” said Blunt, “from a lack of connection with her family because of what happened to her mother.”

Blunt was cast not to be glum but for the humor she could add to the role.

“She was naturally funny without pushing it,” said “Sunshine” producer Glenn Williamson.

Added Blunt: “Depressed is boring to watch.”

As for a lack of connection with her family, that is clearly not the case with the actress. In the middle of talking about her family . . .

“Oh, my God, my grandma’s on the other line,” she said.

For the record, Blunt is the second of four children and has a 19-year-old brother who is a film student and a 17-year-old sister.

“My mom used to be an actress,” she said, picking up the subject after a moment. “She had four kids and a busy husband, which makes it virtually impossible to have a career. So she decided to stop and become a teacher. She taught English as a foreign language.

“My father is a lawyer – he’s a queen’s counsel, a defense criminal lawyer. I think I probably get a bit of (my acting ability) from both of them because my father is biggest actor of all of us.”

A week after “Sunshine,” Blunt can be seen in “The Great Buck Howard” – a quirky comedy staring John Malkovich as a mentalist on the downside of his career and looking for a comeback. Blunt plays an aggressive publicist – something she is well familiar with as a film actress. But when asked what she may have learned, she is very diplomatic.

“I see a lot of them (P.R. people) at photo shoots and the red-carpet events where they are flapping around their clients. Mine, Rupert, certainly is never like that. But I’ve been witness to that . . . So I did, I guess, steal from a few situations I’ve been in or been witness to.”

For her part, Blunt has kept her private life private. She doesn’t talk about her three-year relationship with with Canadian crooner Michael Bubl , whom she first met in 2004, nor John Krasinski of “The Office,” with whom she is currently linked.

In the past, Blunt says, she let too much out publicly and won’t do so again.

“I don’t really have the entourage,” she said. “I have my agent and my publicist. I don’t have a personal assistant. I don’t have anything like that. I do get a weird joy about getting to go out to buy my own toilet roll, if you can believe it. So I don’t get driven crazy by it.”

Blunt sounds so grounded that it’s hard to believe it was only five years ago when she opened filmgoers’ eyes as a seductive young woman in “My Summer of Love.” Acting was never anything she intended to do, but an agent spotted her in a musical when she was 16, and one thing led to another.

Certainly, Blunt’s eclectic choice of roles gives you the sense she’s not worried about major stardom.

“I usually try to choose roles that are a bit left of center and different from the one I played previously,” she said. “I think I’d probably bore myself if I did the same role over and over again.

“I was very drawn to Norah because I’ve never played anyone like her. It’s a very, very American down-and-out role. She’s physically very different from anything I’ve done. I’ve tended to play characters that were more highly strung.”

Highly strung sounds the opposite of Blunt – and then . . .

“My mom just walked in and realized I was doing the interview,” Blunt says, laughing. “I’ll just give her a hug.”

The actress’s other two films this year are “The Wolf Man” and “The Young Victoria,” which opened Friday in England. It’s the story of the British monarch’s love of Prince Albert, who is played by Rupert Friend, Kiera Knightley’s current flame.

“`Victoria’ was probably one of the most rewarding films I’ve worked on – a real challenge,” Blunt said. “I just hope I did her justice because she was a remarkable girl.”

As for the “The Wolf Man,” a remake of the the classic horror film, Blunt had fun working with with “a couple of great actors” in Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins.

“I did a lot of running and screaming,” she said. “But I’m not a great screamer, so they’ll have to dub me for that.”

Emily Blunt is perched ornamentally on a couch in the centre of an opulent suite in London’s Mandarin Oriental hotel. Her spike-heeled feet are pulled up and arranged beside her at an artful right-angle to the rest of her body. Her posture is as upright as a statue. To her growing Hollywood audience at least, who know her through her most famous roles in The Devil Wears Prada and The Jane Austen Book Club, Blunt has become known for a certain British froideur.

In person, however, she is decidedly warm-blooded. In direct contrast to her most high-profile role to date — that of the icy and neurotic Emily in The Devil Wears Prada, Blunt is gracious company and quick to laugh.

And it is due to this quality that she shines in her latest project, The Young Victoria. For her first lead role in a major motion picture she is charged with bringing the famously austere monarch to life. The lady in mourning weeds, whose name has become a byword for joylessness, has her reputation revitalised in the film, which covers her childhood, her courtship by Albert, and the famously passionate and turbulent first years of her marriage and reign.

Playing a repressed school teacher in The Jane Austen Book Club (complete with alice bands and sensible shoes), Blunt proved she was the master of uptight.

She employed cut-glass British-ness to powerfully comic effect in The Devil Wears Prada — so much so that she was widely credited with stealing scenes from under the nose of the legendary Meryl Streep. And while there is nothing of that fictional Emily in the real one, she does possess a pretty impressive degree of sangfroid and composure for an arriviste star. It’s hard to imagine that the polished, self-possessed woman in front of me suffered from a stutter as a child.

“I feel like I’ve been a newcomer for so long now, I just wonder when I actually arrived,” she says with an almost imperceptible tinge of weariness in her voice.

And it is true that Blunt’s success has hardly been built overnight. She first attracted the attention of an agent while in a school production, and got her first professional gig before she had even sat her A-Levels.

A slew of respectable stage and television roles followed until the film industry came calling in the form of My Summer of Love in 2004. But though she demurs at the suggestion, this latest starring role sees her propelled into a different league. She’s being touted as the next British star, with wattage to match a Kate or a Keira. In London, her face is plastered over billboards and buses. This is the role that sees Blunt become a household name.

Though her fame to date has been quite low key, it’s true to say that, just like the young monarch who she plays, Emily has had to do quite a bit of her growing up in the public eye.

“Even though I certainly don’t have crowds of angry people outside my house,” she says, of the comparison to Queen Victoria’s early experiences of public scrutiny, “I think it’s interesting because it does reflect quite closely on what people deal with in this job.”

And like the Queen, she too admits to a degree of immaturity and ill-judged decisions along the way.

Last year, she ended her long-term relationship with the easy-listening crooner Michael Buble. Though the pair shared a house in Vancouver (where Buble is from), eventually the demands of their different schedules got between them.

When they were together, Emily talked freely and unguardedly about her fella, and how smitten she was. But now that the relationship is over, she has learnt about the perils of inviting the media in too much.

Now dating actor John Krasinski, she has revised her policy on talking about her romantic life. “I feel like in the past I might have talked too openly for my own liking, about my private life, and I think that that can be a mistake, because then you are public domain and then people can ask anything,” she says.

She doesn’t want wariness to sound like self-pity, though. “I think it’s very easy for actors to complain and moan, because, I guess, we are over-indulged in general. It’s not really that big of a deal.” And she’s quick to add lightly that she’s not about to “lose any sleep over it, because it’s a wonderful job. It’s incomparable in many ways. And I’m very fulfilled by it, and I feel very lucky to be doing it. So I think if you can expect that side of it to a certain extent, you’ll be fine. But I think you just make choices to step out of that circle. Nothing comes without a price. But I’m not a struggling single mother who is working three jobs. That’s a job. That’s tiring. That’s pressure. Not what I do.”

On the subject of stalking paparazzi she talks with a kind of academic distance, as if it’s a strange sociological phenomenon rather than something that directly affects her life. “I think it’s got a bit out of control, the fascination with celebrity. We’re not all that interesting. Everyone goes to the loo. I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s a mistake to make this job or the people working in it otherworldly,” she says.

Now that her success has gone global she has set herself up with the obligatory house in LA, where she spends a lot of time. It’s not exactly home, though. She’s happy being “transient at the moment” living wherever the meetings and work are.

LA is a notoriously hard city to break into, I suggest. “I think it’s very clique-y,” she agrees. “I think you have to be a bit careful finding out who your friends are in that town. You can feel that quest for success in LA. It emanates out of everyone and every corner of the place. I think you can smell the fear. No one gives a crap in London. I think there is much more of a nonchalant attitude here, which is refreshing actually. I have to come back here to feed on that for a bit. I love the hustle and bustle of being in London. I love that human contact that you get from being on the street. LA is a place of machines, cars just passing each other, so you don’t get that feeling of, community, I think. Which is really important.”

For now, anyway, her family remains her touchstone, a constant source of stability and sanity that helps her navigate a world known for losing its head.

“I think they are vital — they are sort of my life force in many ways, because I come from a very close family, and which is very supportive. It was always very bubbly and fun and encouraging in developing us as individuals. I’m one of four kids but we were all encouraged on our own different paths … And they are always there when the shit hits the fan.”

It’s not the conversation opener I expected from the refined-looking Blunt. As the fantastically neurotic and snooty assistant to Meryl Streep’s magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada, she stalked the set as if she had a coat hanger stuck down the back of her blouse.

Now she is the imposing lead in The Young Victoria, which depicts that famously rigid monarch as a young woman, her accession to the throne at 17, and the first bloom of her romance with Prince Albert.

It is another royal — well, ex-royal — who has inspired our most unregal turn of conversation. Sarah Ferguson, formerly the Duchess of York, aka Fergie, is one of the movie’s producers and is holding court to journalists just down the hall from where Blunt sits with her feet tucked under her on a sofa. The movie’s entourage has taken up the whole first floor of a hotel in London’s swish Knightsbridge, fittingly close to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Amid the mayhem, as TV crews and publicists flit from room to room, Sarah Ferguson’s laugh rings out clearly down the hall.

Fergie is the type of woman you could go for a drink with, I hazard, a double G&T kinda gal. “I think she’s more of a Scotch woman,” suggest Blunt, “I like Scotch myself, on the rocks.”

Blunt just turned 26, but she seems older. She is entrancingly pretty and fresh-faced but is also self-possessed and easy in her skin.

“I hate hearing actors going on about how difficult their lives are,” she says. “I’m not on a minimum wage, working in McDonald’s, trying to bring up a family. Actors are so indulged in many ways, really.”

Blunt seems to be of the mind that if you don’t court attention, you won’t attract it. I tell her that just before our interview I was across the road in Harvey Nichols, where Lindsay Lohan and her girlfriend Samantha Ronson were being trailed around the shop by a retinue of minders. There were no paparazzi around for a change.

“But someone will call them,” says Blunt, with a little involuntary shiver. “The trick is to not go to places where you know you will get attention. You keep your bad behaviour for behind closed doors.”

In any case, Blunt feels she is not yet of the A-list caste that has mutated to wear shades indoors. She doesn’t party in LA — “where people are constantly looking on the street to see if you are ‘someone’” — but she goes out as she pleases in New York and in her native London. She is being chauffeur-driven around on her publicity whirlwind this week, but she normally takes the Tube everywhere. “When people recognise me on the street in London, they just think I am someone they went to school with.”

That suits Blunt just fine because she has already tasted a slice of celebrity as former-girlfriend to Canadian singer Michael Bublé. The pair met backstage at an awards ceremony in Melbourne in 2005 and spent three years being photographed as the glamorous actress and the cabaret crooner. Fans lapped up the romance of how she sang backing vocals on his cover of Me And Mrs Jones, and how he wrote his hit single Everything For Her. When they split last summer, the rumour mill went into overdrive and Blunt shut down.

“I don’t want to sound… distant,” she says hesitatingly, “but it was definitely something that I have had to learn — that I have to keep some things for myself. I just can’t see what there is to be gained from giving away your personal life.” So she won’t confirm or deny that she is dating John Krasinski, the handsome actor from the US version of The Office.

She is afraid this comes across as haughty, but it makes sense in the context of someone like Lohan, who confirmed her relationship with Ronson by ringing into a US radio station.

Not that Blunt is likely to be still taking the Tube this time next year. While Prada made American audiences take notice of her in 2006 — Meryl Streep joked that Blunt should be given a carbon copy of the film, rather than stealing it outright — she is about to feature in an even bigger box office draw. Wolfman, in which she co-stars with Benicio del Toro, is a remake of a 1940s horror classic. “I’m not worried about it,” she says firmly.

Blunt’s maturity must stem from the fact that she has been working solidly as a professional actress since she was 17, performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival while still doing her A-levels. Her lead role in an independent British movie My Summer Of Love won her a slew of newcomer awards in 2004.

She won a Golden Globe in 2007 for playing a troubled young woman in Gideon’s Daughter opposite Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson, who also plays Victoria’s mother in The Young Victoria. So unvarnished was Blunt just two short years ago, that she went up to accept her Golden Globe with no speech prepared.

She is still learning, but has come a long way from the 12-year-old who began drama classes as a way of overcoming a debilitating stammer. She now holds her own opposite such luminary co-stars as Streep and Susan Sarandon. “I did a film called Irresistible with Susan. My God, she’s so sexy, isn’t she? I can’t tell you the number of my friends who came up to me afterwards and said they had the biggest girl crush on her!” laughs Blunt.

One of Blunt’s formative theatre roles was opposite Judi Dench, in a production called the Royal Family. It was prophetic because Dench also fleshed out the character of Queen Victoria, in the 1997 film Mrs Brown.

Blunt is horrified at the thought of being hailed as a national treasure like the wonderful Judi. “That would be terrible — the pressure of not making a mistake or saying something that all of a sudden reflects badly on your whole country!”

Blunt and Dench’s portrayals are at opposite bookends of Victoria’s life, but both found a way of bringing the hoary old matriarch to life. “When I was told there was a script coming towards me about Victoria I thought, ‘Oh, right…’ The image I had of her was that old side-profile that everyone knows with the hanky on her head and the jowls,” says Blunt.

Instead, the movie shows a headstrong, funny, vivacious young woman trying to be a socially conscious monarch within the suffocating cocoon of royalty. Her relationship with Albert is the lynchpin of the movie — it helps that he is played by Rupert Friend, boyfriend of Keira Knightley and doe-eyed hunk. “Poor Rupert,” says Blunt, “we were being interviewed together this morning, and some of the female journalists just came out and said to him, ‘You’re gorgeous’. I mean, what do you say to that? He was really embarrassed.” I’m pleased to see that Blunt is a bit of a lioness when it comes to her friends, or should we say, Friend. I make a mental note not to call him a heart-throb in her presence.

“Her relationship with Albert is so wonderful and vibrant,” she continues. Is that a euphemism for sexy? After all, the ‘intimate’ body piercing called the Prince Albert ring is supposedly named for the man who popularised it. “That is an absolute myth! I know; I asked!” laughs Blunt, clearly no prude.

Interviews with actors are often pleasant, but rarely fun. Talking to Blunt is like having a natter with a pal. She’s not afraid of a naughty anecdote: “Anne [Hathaway]had to wear padding on her bottom at the start of Prada, and my favourite thing was to go past her and whack her on the backside!”

For the record, she didn’t mind slimming down for Prada because her character, also called Emily, was meant to be obsessed with her weight. But she would point-blank refuse to skinny up just because a director thought she looked chubby. “You know, it’s actually the men I’ve worked with who have been more often asked to lose a few pounds,” she confides with a smile. “They put on a bit of weight, but I think they think they can just hide it under the clothes.”

Still, her male colleagues are unlikely to be subjected to the corsets which Blunt was strapped into every morning on the set of Victoria. “I actually got used to it. When I first put it on, it reminded me of putting on my first bra — you know, that weird feeling?”

Bras, cute boys, girl crushes: all this conversation is missing is the vodka.

The Young Victoria opens today nationwide

What was it like to wear the giant dress you had to wear in The Young Victoria?

I’m glad that I didn’t get used to seeing myself like that because it wasn’t that much fun to wear all of those costumes. I think without the corset it would have been beautiful and fun but the corset makes it painful. I have painful memories of them as opposed to beautiful ones.

What was the crown like to wear?

It was just incredibly heavy, to the point it gave me a dent in the middle of my forehead for my close up afterwards. We had to leave it for an hour until the dent had managed to raise itself again.

Were you warned that you may struggle with the costumes before filming?

I think when I started having the fittings, I became aware of the scale of the dresses that I was going to have to wear. I had something like 43 different dresses. When you see the dresses on the rack, you’re like, ‘Oh. It’s gorgeous’, and if you wear it for 15 minutes in the fitting it’s gorgeous and then when you wear it for two hours it’s not so gorgeous.

Did you have to have lessons in etiquette and for the dances of the period?

We did. Rupert and I learnt how to waltz together, which was actually an accelerated bonding in a way, which is great, because we were both useless. And you have to physically be close to someone to do that and we didn’t even know each other but we had a real laugh doing it and we worked our socks off. I think Rupert had blisters on his feet on the day of the actual ball. He got a bit teed off with that.

We had a wonderful etiquette advisor on set who has close ties with the royal family. I think he was great because it wasn’t coming from a contrived place. He wanted it be real. He wanted it be authentic because at the end of the day it’s such a performance being a royal.

And that’s what I loved about the script, that you see the performance side of being the queen of England but also the very private side where she kicks back and relaxes. I’m sure other etiquette coaches or etiquette advisors would have been flapping about some of the things that I did but Alistair was wonderfully supportive of those moments where you have to show the humanity of this person.

You had a real royal princess – Beatrice – who played a role as your lady in waiting. What was that like?

She was just very normal and I think very excited to be there and certainly not wanting to lord it about that she was a princess. She was very helpful. She actually carried my mile-long train for me, she was really sweet.

Did you worry about representing a queen that was such a figurehead?

I did feel the pressure. I certainly felt the weight of responsibility before I started it and had a few sleepless nights. It was a wonderful atmosphere to work in, so as soon as I arrived on set I felt comforted by that and I had great playmates to support me throughout this. But I think I did worry about doing her justice more than anything because I read everything I could on her and she was the most remarkable girl. I think I was very keen to be contrary to people’s original perception of her, which is usually when she’s older, she’s a widow, she’s mourning and sour-faced.

When she was younger she was the polar opposite of that. I think we all decided we had to be courageous with that and show the youth and the exuberance and Victoria as this very rebellious young girl, who’s in a job where she’s way over her head. I thought that that was an accessible figure rather than someone who no-one can identify with.

Playing a queen does seem to be one of those award-winning roles as well…

[Laughs] I don’t know. You can’t say that, because what if nothing happens! I think what we’ve made here is not necessarily that Hollywood-ised because it’s a much gentler film and it doesn’t have the reverence and arch attitude that a lot of these period dramas have that are the real show-stoppers. It’s not the conventional period drama because it’s a very intimate portrait of this girl.

I was reading that the director [Jean-Marc Vallée] brought music in to help you get into character. What did you have for your role?

He played a lot of this Icelandic band called Sigur Rós and he loved them, so he’d play their music on set. He has a very contemporary flair and a different sensibility coming from Canada. He just bought that different light into a film that could’ve been stuffy if it had been left up to the wrong hands.

I played some Patti Smith as well to bring out the rebellious side.

Did it work having that on set to get you in a certain mood?

Yea, it really did. That was the great part, it was a very atmospheric set to work on. It was relentless, it never stopped moving so I don’t think I was given room to take a breath and feel panicked by it. We laughed so much and it was the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had on a film set.