Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise. Shutterstock (2)
Emily’s not the only one who’s Blunt! The A Quiet Place actress recalled Tom Cruise’s alleged no-holds-barred directive to her on set of the 2014 action-thriller Edge of Tomorrow.
“It was my first foray into action, and as Tom said, rather unreassuringly when we started it, he goes, ‘This is the deep end of action for me,’” Blunt, 39, revealed on an episode of the “SmartLess” podcast that dropped Monday, December 12. “And I was like, ‘If you’re saying that, then we are in trouble.’”
The actress explained to cohosts Will Arnett, Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman that they “had to wear these really enormous robotic suits” — which weighed “like 85 pounds.”
“It was so heavy that the first time I put it on, I just started to cry. I just started to cry in front of Tom. He just stared at me and was like, ‘I know, I know,’” Blunt remembered, imitating her own blubbering. “And I was like, ‘Tom, I’m not sure how I’m going to get through this shoot,’ and I started to cry. I was like, ‘I’m just feeling a bit panicky about the whole shoot.’”
The 60-year-old Mission Impossible actor, however, needed his costar to get it together. “He literally goes — he stared at me for a long time not knowing what to do — and he goes, ‘Come on, stop being such a p—y, OK?’” Blunt laughed, adding that Cruise’s advice allowed them to get “through it.”
Still, as the Devil Wears Prada actress recalled in a 2020 interview with Conan O’Brien, there was a moment on set where she “almost killed” the Top Gun star while driving a car during a particularly intense action sequence.
“I tear down this part and Tom’s being very quiet behind me I hear him under his breath as I approach the right-hand turn, going ‘Brake, brake, brake. Brake. Brake, brake, brake … Oh God. Brake, brake, brake. Brake it hard! Brake hard!’” the British actress shared at the time, adding “I left it too late, and so drove us into a tree … I almost killed Tom Cruise.’”
In addition to her Edge of Tomorrow anecdotes, Blunt hadn’t exactly been subtle when discussing her thoughts about Cruise’s career years before they filmed the 2014 movie.
In a 2005 interview with The Telegraph, the Jungle Cruise actress claimed that she’d rather be a poor actress than work “as a spear carrier in a Tom Cruise movie.”
Nine years later, when doing press for Edge of Tomorrow, Blunt was forced to confront her past comments while talking to the same outlet. While at first, she didn’t believe she ever made the remarks — “I never said that! What an awful thing to say,” she insisted at the time — she ultimately had to concede when shown the exact interview.
“That is so funny,” she laughed, quipping, “Well, at least I’m not a spear carrier.”