Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt: Prada’s rivals meet again, 18 years later

From the “Prada club to the Nolan club”, the two actresses talk about their meeting and their journey with humor.

Face to face for a long Actors on Actors interview orchestrated by Variety (on the same principle as the special interview “Barbenheimer”with Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy), Anne Hathaway And Emily Blunt met with joy to remember their meeting during the Devil wears Prada and their respective induction into the filmography of Christopher Nolan. Both were invited for their key roles in Eileen for the first and in Oppenheimer for the second, films that mattered in Hollywood in 2023.

The American was the first of the two to enter this club, with her role as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Risesthen alongside Matthew McConaughey In Interstellar. More recently, her British colleague joined the filmmaker’s filmography by playing Kitty, Oppenheimer’s wife in the eponymous biopic released this summer. Christopher Nolana.k.a “Captain Extraordinary” according to Emily Bluntis described by the two actresses as a director of extreme precision and very attentive.

But before talking about him, they discuss with nostalgia their fashion comedy, released in 2006 at the cinema, and which has since become cult.

“I heard your name was considered (For Prada), Hathaway begins. They told me: ‘She’s an amazing girl from England and she’s so funny.’ I remember walking into the room, turning around and seeing you. In my head I immediately thought: ‘What a movie star!’“

They strike as they recently celebrated their eighteen years of friendship: “You are one of the people I have known the longest in this business. Do you realize that it was 18 years ago!”, exclaims Emily Blunt. A relationship that “has adulthood” jokes Anne Hathaway.

Over this period, the two actresses evolved separately before coming together in an unexpected way, as Anne Hathaway points out: “So we were together in the club The devil wears Prada. And now we are together in another club – the club Christopher Nolan.”

Anne Hathaway as you’ve never seen her in the Eileen trailer

Anne Hathaway recounts in particular that on the filming of The Dark Knight Rises she didn’t feel up to it. A member of the team reportedly said to her when he saw her doubting herself: “You know, if you’re on the set of a Nolan movie, you have to be one of the three best people in the world to do the job.”, she remembers, drawing a burst of admiration fromEmily Blunt. She also adds that during the filming ofInterstellarthe director was so consumed by his film that during the scene shot on a glacier “The colder it got and the harsher the conditions, the bluer Chris’ eyes became. And the blonder his hair was.”

They then laugh about the fact that when he is happy with a catch “her hair starts to dance” approval. “It’s like he starts to vibrate when he’s happy, says Blunt., mocking. On the other hand, he will never tell you that he is happy, because he is an Englishman!”

Emily Blunt recounts his experience on the set ofOppenheimer : “He (Christopher Nolan) expects this excellence from all team members. He expects the same magnitude as what he is capable of giving from these collaborators”.

She then details a sequence in which the camera pans towards her with a very specific tempo: “It was hard to do correctly, so I suggested turning into another position to make the camera movement easier and Chris said: ‘It’s not your place to worry about that, because that’s why I hired the best, right Ryan?’ And poor Ryan on the tracking shot was nodding ‘absolutely !'”

Both actresses agree that Nolan is infinitely kind and Emily Blunt summarizes by adding that the actors are all “very proud” to be in his films… then the discussion quickly switches back to Pradasince they can’t resist the urge to remember a few lines.

We thus learn that Meryl Streep improvised her famous “pique” coffee, when she wonders out loud why it still hasn’t been delivered to her desk. “Is my assistant dead?”they say, laughing. “I remember that she proposed at least 18 other valves in this genre, laughs Hathaway. Stanley Tucci was like that too. And you. I was like a child at a show wondering how you managed to be so good.” She also says she had a good joke when she arrived at a hotel in Italy, based on one of the essential sentences from the film: “They gave me a little cake with this note: ‘Can you spell Gabbana for me?'”

Bursting out laughing while rereading something stupid she had to say to Anne Hathaway about her look, Emily Blunt is called out by her playing partner: “I love the fact that it still makes you laugh so much 18 years later because that’s what happened on set that day: you couldn’t say that without laughing.” “I think it will always make me laugh, in fact, she confesses. Honestly, I must have been horrible to you for most of the film, and I see your little face again, so beautiful, and your slightly shocked reaction to so much nastiness…”

“I felt like Meryl would have liked to have fun with us, but she was still in character,” Hathaway finally explains. “Yes, and I believe that since then, she has no longer wanted to accept roles imposing on her ‘the method’because she was too frustrated on this shoot!”adds Blunt between two knowing laughs.

Meryl Streep takes The Devil Wears Prada into another dimension (review)