In an interview for Elle magazine’s Women in Hollywood cover series, Emily Blunt reflected on her first film audition for Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2004 romance drama My Summer of Love. Brandt was 19 years old at the time. The film encouraged improvisation, so there was no need to read the script during the audition.
“Paweł was sitting by the window and he had terrible hair,” Brandt said. “He was filming me with a video camera, and in a Polish accent he said, ‘Okay, I’m going to read a little bit. I look out the window and I see my dad having sex with his secretary. And I want you to be scared. You get very, very angry. Then you get very upset and cry about it. And then at some point you pretend it was all a joke. All right, go.'”
“He gave me no chance other than to hold my foot to the fire,” Blunt added, adding that he immediately called his agent and told him how badly he thought he had embarrassed himself at the audition. Blunt ultimately won the role and played opposite Natalie Press in the film.
“It was about living in the moment and really becoming someone else,” Blunt said of acting in the film, which centers on a romance between two young women. “Paweł taught me a lot about ambiguity and spontaneity, which was very scary at first. It was very scary to work without adapting to anything. But after watching the film, I quickly learned how fascinating ambiguity can be.”
Blunt continued, “That movie really laid the foundation for me to be able to do really scary things, to be able to create things, to be able to change lines, to be able to stretch out scenes. So I would say that movie was a huge turning point and a huge lesson for me. It was like I was stuck in the deep end with a weight on my ankle.”
Although My Summer of Love was not a huge success at the box office, it was well received by film critics and won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The film was Pawlikowski’s second feature directorial effort, and he went on to direct films such as Aida and Cold War, the former of which won him the International Feature Film Award, and the latter of which earned him a nomination for Best Director.
Blunt’s performance in My Summer of Love was widely praised, with a review in Variety calling her “terrific” and praising her “mysterious and mixed” character for adding “a sense of menace” to the film.
Visit Elle magazine’s website to read Blunt’s latest profile in full.
