Actor Emily Blunt recently revealed the blunt, crude advice Tom Cruise gave her while working on the 2014 sci-fi film “Edge Of Tomorrow.”
During an appearance on the “SmartLess” podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes, Blunt shared the challenges of working on her first action-oriented flick.
The actor said that Cruise told her “rather un-reassuringly” when they started the film that it was “the deep end of action for” him. The “Mary Poppins Returns” star said her reaction was, “If you are saying that, like, we are in trouble.”
One stunt was particularly daunting because it required Blunt and Cruise to wear what she described as “really enormous robotic suits” to do the scene “in a tactile way” rather than with CGI.
“And you know, when you hear the word tactile, you’re like, that sounds nice and cozy,” Blunt continued. “There was nothing cozy about wearing these suits. Like, mine was like 85 pounds. It was so heavy.”
Blunt said the first time she put on the suit she started to cry in front of her co-star. She confessed she wasn’t sure if she would be able to get through the shoot and admitted to feeling “a bit panicky.”
Blunt said Cruise stared at her for a while, trying to figure out the right thing to say. His ultimate choice of words?
“Come on, stop being such a pussy. OK?” Blunt relayed, which led Hayes to gasp and Bateman to joke, “Nice, good for Tom.”
“And I did laugh and then we got through it,” Blunt said.
A sequel to “Edge Of Tomorrow” has been discussed since at least 2019, and Blunt told EW in 2021 that she read a script “that was in really great shape.” However, she told Howard Stern at the time that she thought “the movie is probably too expensive.”
You can hear the whole “SmartLess” interview below.