Emily Blunt recalls first audition at 19: ‘Horrified’

Emily Blunt is looking back at the moment that kickstarted her acting career, and it wasn’t exactly glamorous. 

In a new interview with Elle magazine for its Women in Hollywood cover series, the actress opened up about her very first movie audition at the age of 19, which she remembers as both horrifying and transformative.

The audition was for Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2004 romance drama My Summer of Love.

Since the film encouraged improvisation, there was no script to prepare from, something that immediately threw Blunt off balance. 

“Paweł sat by the window and he had this mad hair,” Blunt recalled. 

“He’s filming me on his camcorder and in his Polish accent he goes, ‘Okay, so we’re going to do a little reading. You look out the window and you see your dad and he’s fucking his secretary, and I want you to be horrified. You get very, very mad. Then get very upset and cry about it. And then at some point, pretend the whole thing’s a joke. Okay, go.’”

Blunt laughed about it now but admitted it was anything but funny at the time. “He gave me no opportunity, but to put my feet to the fire,” she said, recalling how she called her agent afterward convinced that she had completely messed up the audition. 

Despite her doubts, she landed the role and went on to star opposite Natalie Press in the film.

Reflecting on the experience, Blunt said the project was about “living in the moment, and really becoming somebody else.” 

She credited Pawlikowski for shaping her understanding of acting. 

“Paweł taught me a lot about ambiguity and spontaneity, which was completely terrifying to me at first. To work without any conformity was super scary. But I learned swiftly afterward from watching the movie how compelling ambiguity can be.”

That early experience, though intense, became a defining moment in her career. 

“It just really created this foundation for me of, you can do really scary things, you can create, you can change the lines, you can stretch a scene around—you can do that,” Blunt shared. 

“So I’d say that movie was a big turning point, a big lesson for me. Like being chucked in the deep end with a weight around my ankles.”

For Blunt, what began as a nerve-wracking experience became the first real step toward discovering her instincts as an actress, and learning how to trust them.