Disclosure Day: Emily Blunt on Film's Secrecy and Learning an Alien Language (Exclusive)

Emily, congratulations. Thank you. You are so phenomenal in this film. Thank you so much. And you're not only on a Steven Spielberg set, but you're also on one of the most secretive sets, I feel like. Yes. In a while. Yes. Do you understand what she's saying? I hear her. It's gibberish. I can't understand it. And I can. What's happening to me? People are starved for the truth. What was it like being on this project, and actually take me back, how did this role come to you? Well, it was so secretive that when my agent called me and said, Steven Spielberg wants to meet you, and I screamed, because they didn't even know what it was about. My agent didn't know what it was about. No, nothing was passed over. He didn't know if it was just a general, didn't know what movie Steven was working on. And that is so exciting when the creatives are just kind of like in lockstep and in cahoots and no one else knows about it. So I went to meet him. I like ran to meet him, and on the desk, on the coffee table, was a book about close encounters. And so he pitched me a little bit of it, and then he said, I don't want to tell you anymore. I want you to take it home and read it, and then you call me. And I called him and I cried, because I was just, it was so breathtaking. Such an astonishing feat that he'd done, and these massive themes, these huge existential questions we're left asking ourselves about humanity's place in the universe, and yet it's told as this crazy life-or-death chase thriller. I was like, I don't know how he balances it. He's really amazing. If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? And seeing the Steven Spielberg this excited about a film, how did that manifest for you day-to-day on set? Oh, it's infectious. It like bleeds into all of us. It's like by osmosis, you become as giddy as he is, and he's childlike. He's still full of wonder. It's almost like he's still an independent filmmaker, because he's still so curious about everything. He tells you when he's unsure of something. I would wake up at six in the morning for my pickup, and I could see he would have been up all night. I would have got a 3 a.m. text of some little rewrite, or what do you think about this, Em? And what about this? And maybe he just fever dreams, day dreams, night dreams about how to make you guys feel something. People have a right to know the truth. It belongs to 7 billion people. What is it? You wouldn't believe me if I told you, so I'm going to show you. And let's talk about you and Josh, too. The chemistry was just so good on screen, and you described it as a sibling chemistry. Yes. Tell me what it was like when the cameras stopped rolling off set. How did you guys establish that relationship? Oh, it was effortless. I mean, it's like Josh is a blunt. He's like part of my family. I don't know. He instantly felt like my little brother, and he's a magical, awesome person. Yeah. You also helped invent part of the alien language. Today is... Today's... What went into landing those clicking noises? Experimenting alone in my bathroom, like where it would echo and sound kind of cool. Steven and I discussed it, and he said, you know, we could do it with AI, or you could do it. And I was like, I feel confident. I can make some weird noises. I said, this will be our first time working together. And that was our text exchange for as long as I could remember was, what about this? What about this? And you're sending voice memos? Yeah, of me clicking, humming, doing weird Barry White sort of low singing mixed with clicking, with Morse code sounds. Yeah, I just tried everything. We sort of threw the kitchen sink at it, and I think he wanted it to sound mathematical and not too terrifying. So then we went into the sound booth, and I had one microphone here, one here, and one here. And so it picks up the resonance of it in different ways and makes it distort. Oh, interesting. So we did it. We did tons of different sounds, and then Gary Rydstrom layered it, and that was what we heard. And that's how we heard, yeah. What was more challenging, having to do that alien language or all the other languages that were required? The other languages. In particular, I found Korean very challenging, but I had amazing teachers. They were awesome with me, and they would record these lines for me slowly, phonetically, syllable by syllable, and then at great velocity until I had it. Wow. Yeah, it's truly so impressive. If you do this, there's no one doing it. Also, the train sequence is something that I keep thinking about. That is insane. I feel like it rivaled a Tom Cruise scene. Oh, God. Don't tell Josh O'Connor that. He's desperate to be Tom Cruise. That will be thrilling for him to hear. He will love that. Oh, my God. I'm going to tell him. Obviously, we watched the scene. You lived it. What was it like getting that just right, and what did that look like on set? I mean, you pray you're going to be in a Steven Spielberg action scene because they're always so inventive and rare, and it was so thrilling. I didn't find it scary. I found it exhilarating, and you know that the way he shoots it, it's going to look awesome. You just know. There's this safety net of how he conveys things with the camera. It was so thrilling, but when I watched it for the first time and that other train is approaching, I was terrified. Yeah. What was your reaction watching that scene in particular back? I watched it the first time with Josh, and we were pumping our fists. We were grabbing onto each other watching it. It was so cool. Also, can we just talk about the year that you're having? I got to chat with you for The Devil Wears Prada 2, of course, and it's doing so well at the box office. You know what's funny is you've changed. You have. You're much more confident. You kept those eyebrows, though, didn't you? It's amazing the fans are loving it. I'm curious about the timeline. Were you shooting The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Disclosure Day at the same time? No. I did Disclosure Day first, and then I had most of the summer off, and then I went into Devil. So Devil was after this. It was after. Yeah. Because I was like, I cannot imagine two very, very different characters to get into and get out of. Devil was sort of like so familiar. You know, that's like old stomping ground, and I also didn't have to work many days on that. So this was like a huge undertaking, Stephen's movie, and the character was the full rainbow of like I think what would be required of me to play the part, and I think to go step back into Emily Charlton's shoes was like pretty surreal. But I knew that character. Right. I mean, the fans are still, they love the sequel. Is there a chance that the story could continue? Could you see that? If you guys like it enough, maybe. Who knows? What would you like to see? More? Maybe. Okay, same. Tell me a little bit too about, we're talking about the preparation to get this character exactly right, because like you were saying, it is a very particular character. Yeah. I mean, I, obviously she's not from where I'm from as well, and so there's dialect work that I always do with my amazing dialect coach and dear friend Liz Himmelstein. She basically does, works with every Brit you could ever imagine to try to get them to do an American accent, and I've worked with her for years. And it's a specific accent. You know, it's where she's from. It's Kansas. It's, and then I, it usually helps me if I base it on someone or the essence of someone, so then I don't feel it's an accent. It's a person. And who did you base it on? I never tell. I can't. Okay, okay. Because it will probably only make sense to me. People will be like, that's not what you sound like. Yeah. But, yeah, so then that's part of the process. That's like the weeks in advance. And I knew when I read this part that I would need a lot of prep time. I would want a lot of prep time to really dork out over it and make sure I felt really ready, so I really had a good six, seven months to work on it all. Okay, and lastly, one quick fun question is if you had to suspect that a past co-star could be an alien, who would you say? A past co-star would be an alien. Let's say Colin Firth, right? He was so convincing in this. So weird. I'm just going to say Colin. Yeah. Just to annoy him. I love that. Well, you guys are truly awesome. The movie's amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Don't you let go.