Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - OSCAR NOMINEE: Emily Blunt (January 2024)

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

Emily Blunt joins Willie Geist to talk everything "Oppenheimer": the all-star cast, award season chatter, and the performance that has earned her her first ever Oscar nomination. (Original broadcast date January 7, 2024.) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for listening. Got a great one for you again this week, not just one of my favorite guests. One of my favorite people. She is Emily Blunt. Emily is nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards for her performance in the mega hit Oppenheimer, where she plays Kitty Oppenheimer, the wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.

Overall, that movie nominated for 13. teen Oscars. She and I talk about the experience with that incredible cast and that incredible director, Christopher Nolan. We also talk about her penchant for napping anywhere, any time, any place. It's kind of amazing. She'll explain how she does it. We also have a question submitted by another famed director and actor who also happens to be her husband, John Krasinski, who texted me a question for her. Hang in for that. So sit back, relax. As we listen together in my conversation right now with Oscar nominee, Emily Blunt, on the Sunday Sitdown podcast. It's so nice to see you, Emily.

You do. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. We're in the strange position of talking about a movie that's been out for four and a half or five months. Yeah. Which is kind of cool, though, because you can react and absorb all that's come, the success critically, commercially, all the things that have happened. What has this ride been like for you to sit back? because there was a strike and just watch it all happen?

I mean, I feel like we're also kind of awestruck by the reaction and the ongoing reaction, and we have had time to sort of reflect on it. I don't know if any of us have fully absorbed it. I'm so grateful. We're all, like, overjoyed that it was as meteoric as it became. You know, I feel like that movie got unleashed on the world, and people are still wanting to see it again and again. People want to see it two, three, four times.

And there's just so much to mine out of this extraordinary film. And it's wild. It's just wild, you know. We were talking about how you got to make this film with a group of your friends, effectively. Killian and Matt and Robert and Florence, and the list goes on and on. Were you sort of talking to each other behind the scene saying, wow, this thing's really taking off? I mean, do you mean once the movie? movie came out. Yes, yes. I mean, we're all on this chain as something called an Oppen Homies chain,

but it's like, did you title it Oppen Homies? I did not. It was one of our scientist's friends. Okay. But we are all on a chain with each other and just so many wows and expletives and just like everyone just, just jaws on the floor when it came out and became like a runaway train. I think even Chris Nolan didn't expect it to become what it did, you know. Yeah, I mean, as I said, commercially, it's made almost a billion dollars. You can set that aside, but critically, each of you individually has received so much praise for those performances. That has to be incredibly gratifying to you to hear people talking in terms of awards and everything else about your portrayal of Kitty, given how much you put into it. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously, it's so much.

moving. I think maybe specifically for this one because I think the characters are so distinctive, so vibrant and exciting. I think Killian's performance is just astonishing. I just think he's so interior, so intimate, such a beautifully judged performance. He's in every frame of the thing. I don't know how Killian got through that shoot. We shot it in 57 days, and it was just monumental sort of herculean task for him. But I think around Oppenheimer were these really wild, sort of colorful characters and so much to chew on as actors with that extraordinary script that Chris wrote. And I loved playing her. I really did. What was your initial reaction when Chris came to you and said, here's the character, Kitty Oppenheimer, wife of the man who created

the A-bomb and was haunted by it and everything else. Was it, this is Chris Nolan, I'm doing it effectively? Yeah, I mean, everyone will just say yes. I gather when Chris sits down and meets you, it's because you are his first choice for it. So if you're even going to meet him, I ran. I ran to meet him. I was so thrilled. And he's so understated as a person.

He's so English. He's like, we chatted for him. like an hour and a half and then he's like, you know, so I'd like you to play the roll of Kitty Oppenheimer. And it's like, if you want to take a look and, you know, and it was just delivered in this really a bad way. I just remember my insides were like churning. I was so excited. And he, his scripts are always on a, on, printed on red paper.

I think for privacy that you can't photocopy red paper. But Downey's always laughed and said he thinks it's like hypnotic somehow. So that's why everyone says yes to Chris because he likes seduced by the red paper. But I read this. heart-bracing script, which I don't know if you could class it as a biopic or a historical drama. It read at the pace of a horror movie. It was so visceral. And I remember him coming in afterwards after I'd finished reading. And I couldn't even form thoughts. I just said, I'm so emotional reading this script. It's just extraordinary. And what was it about Kitty that you fell in love with as you

read that. She's an incredible character that most people through history are not aware of who were introduced in this film. What did you like about her? Well, I mean, she certainly didn't subscribe to good housekeeping. No, no. I don't know if that was a monthly subscription for her. I think she was just a rebel. There was just a refusal to contort herself into being the housewife ideal. And, I mean, he was her fourth husband. She was 29. It sort of tells you what you need to know. about that. She was fairly remorseless at leaving people in the dust onto the next thing and the next thing and just restless and fiercely bright. And the two of them meeting, it was like two comets coming together. Like, and they were sort of intellectually bonded. And he was such a huge,

just a monumental figure in her life and she and his, I think. They had a wild marriage. It was clearly addled with alcohol and cigarettes and it was tempestuous at times, but ultimately, I think, quite a successful one. You're right. She was not waiting at home in an apron with an apple pie to take his briefcase. Or if she had to be, it was like a terrible apple pie, and she was a terrible mother. I guess I just, she was all sharp edges, and in the book that we all read, American Prometheus, she was not terribly well liked. She was very difficult. person, definitely rub people the wrong way and really frank and unguarded. But again, I think she just didn't want to conform. And men at that time didn't like that at Los Alamos. So when she'd throw

dinner parties, there was no dinner. There was only like martinis. That's how they rolled, you know. but she I had such empathy I guess because I think a lot of women at that time deteriorated in supporting their husbands and their success and their growth

and I think she was one of those women who just sort of went insane at the ironing board I think it's so interesting you say that because I think that of a lot of women characters that I see from back then but you see lost potential because you see how smart she is when she's in the room in the interrogation people have seen it now i'm not giving yeah you know it's okay we're a couple months through this um just the way she wins over that group

of cigarette smoking men who are there to intimidate her and she will not be intimidated it does feel like in another time she had so much more to give so much more you know and i think with the isolation and loneliness of los alamos it just must have been it just must have been so hard you know, you see the decline of a lot of them and what they experience and the tension and claustrophobia of Los Alamos, what they were creating, how all those scientists felt they had no choice. The stakes were sky high. And I think, in many ways, I think what the film explores is the trauma that he has of living with a brain like that. And I think there's some of that for her, too. It's a burden, you know, in many ways. I think that's why they both lent on vices to

numb out the noise and although afterwards in the aftermath and during that court hearing he's riddled with guilt and shame I don't think she is I don't think she is I think they both kind of self-mythologized and built this persona by design and then just to see them raked across the coals in those hearings was I think she must have just sat there just simmering with rage and so I'm just so happy. I was happy for me as an actor to get to do a scene like that at the end, but I was happy for her as a character, like that kind of reclamation of that brain. And you see her come back to life, and it's really exciting, you know, and she's proven herself to be so unpredictable and so volatile at that point. So it was really exhilarating, doing it. She also has a voice in history

now because of your characterization. As I said, people who know she is generally, unless you've read American Prometheus. She now is a, she's a figure. She had a hand in everything that happened at Los Alamos. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Emily Blunt right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Emily Blunt. You were talking about Christopher Nolan.

For the uninitiated, who've never been on a set with him, what is the Christopher Nolan experience? Why is it so special? Why were you turning and jumping out of your chair to take this part? He's just unparalleled, I think. I don't know where the theatrical experience would be without him. He so enjoys these massive experiences and puts them out there on the screen for everyone to enjoy. And he loves to provoke and challenge and create conversations.

And he doesn't, he's not led by a pre-scentry. supposed idea of what the audience will think. He's just like singular and he's an amazing person. I don't know. I mean, talk about the trauma of living with a brain like that. I don't know how Chris Noah shuts him off. I asked him when I was like, do you sleep well? He goes, yeah. I don't know. Like Chris is just very healthy in managing his tremendously intimidating brain. And we all, and he's fun. And he's just loves actors so much. He loves. He loves. them and you feel that like sometimes you work with directors and they're purely led by the visuals and then you work with a director who can do both like him and it's like everyone just takes flight

when they're in his movies because everyone's so safe he's amazing there's no chaos on set I don't know how he held the storm of this movie in his head the whole time you feel none of it none of it he's he's amazing and for years before that thinking through it, writing it. Yeah. I was interviewing your friend Matt Damon about this and he said, you know, nothing is green screened as you know, none of that.

You said the first explosion, you go, oh, right, we're just going to have the explosion, right? I think I'm not talking to a tennis ball or whatever it is. So I imagine there's just as close as real you can get to, obviously, an A-bomb test, but there was a realism to the experience as well. Yeah. I mean, we pulled into,

he built 1940, Los Alamos in the middle of the New Mexican desert. It was extraordinary. I felt like it was on Lawrence of Arabia or something. It was just amazing. And everything's tactile. You can touch it. You can feel it.

You exist within a world that is so transporting. And I think that's the way he likes to work. And I think the audience can feel it. They might not even know why they can, but it just, they feel inside of it more. You can see. You can see when it's real. I'm going to preempt your answer because you were a humble person I know, which is you don't take roles or give performances for awards and all that.

But there are people you may have noticed who are talking about your performance in a way that could win awards next year. Is that... Is that... Do you seem like very... For the British, that is like... I like to make my guest deeply uncomfortable. Good, good, you did. Here we are.

Is that significant to you? Is it important to you? How does that sound? I find it deeply moving. It means so much to me that people talk about me in that way. You don't set out to elicit that reaction. I love the work so much. I'm in love with this job. I'm in love with this movie. And if people are talking about me in that way, I'm so thrilled. thrilled. But that's as much as I can say, I guess. But I know it's important.

I know it's important for me and I know it's important for the movie to just embrace it all, really. And for the record, I raised it. So if there's a jinx, it's on me. Not an Emily. Do you understand that? True.

There was a very cool thing that happened this summer with your movie and Barbie. It got its own name and everything. I know. going to see both. Yes. And what a great moment for movie theaters? Beyond.

To get a couple of billion dollars off of these two movies because people were so, um, so in love with both of these films. Yeah. That was kind of a cool, unexpected phenomenon, was it not? It was. And like to be part of a movement like that that was so unexpected, I think, for any of us. And it was joyful. It was a celebration.

It didn't mean that one was pitted against the other. you did want to go and see both. And I think I hadn't realized how much of a moment we were a part of until, just because of the strike, I never got to see it with an audience.

We got cut short and we all went home and we managed to get two tickets to an IMAX in Nyack, New York, in a shopping mall in, at a 4 p.m. screening, like opening weekend, we're like, we're going. You and Jan.

Yeah. And we snuck in the back when it went dark, and I saw a group of boys coming in dressed as Oppenheimer. Come on. At 4 p.m. and Nyack with like pipes dangling out of their mouths. And I just was, I got goosebumps. I still get chills thinking about it. Wow. And I called Killian afterwards. I was like, this is more than a movie. This is more than a movie. This is a movement. This is a, I literally have chills thinking about it. It was wild. That's not something boys usually.

do. It's not really. Kind of amazing. It says a lot about the movie. It was awesome. Now, did they clock you? Did anybody see you back there? No, I mean, I was like, like, plump. Yeah, yeah. Dressed in sweats. No one really expects it. That must have been a thrill, though, to watch people watch that movie. Wild. Wild. And people clapping and cheering and feeling the doors get blown off the place at the end of it. And people sat, people cheered at the end, and then they sat there in silence. When does that happen? everyone leaves the movies going where do you want to go for dinner

you know that's like people are off it never happens like that where people are stunned there is an element of absorbing that film yeah and all it means for us as humans I didn't even feel my legs after it I remember staggering towards Chris Nolan being like I'm moving very slowly I can't feel my legs it was just so

yeah I watched it with Robert Downey and we were both really emotional watching it for the first time I'm sure I told you I saw it in IMAX and the same experience, boom, blew you out and then you just have to sit with it for a little while. I think the level of shock and destruction at the end of it, you know. And that idea that no bomb goes off cleanly, like we're still living in this looming shadow of what was created

and it's very present for everyone. You know, I think we've all normalized it, that these atomic bombs exist, we've all normalized it for so long. And the movies are reminder, kind of startling force of a reminder of what's out there, you know. A little less heavy, but no. Please. I know I went real dark there. No, no, that's good.

But let's talk about the other side of Barbenheimer. Well done. Excuse me. Blue that line. You've seen it a couple of times, I understand. Yeah, well, we have little girls. Yeah. Like, of course.

Loved it. Loved it. Yeah. Loved it. Quote it. They play the soundtrack. Love it. Are they happy that you've now worked with Ryan Gosseling then for the Fall Guy?

They're so happy. They have never had any interest in anyone I've worked with ever. They know a lot of people I've worked with. They love Killian. They love Robert. They love Matt. But Ryan is, Ryan's it for them. They finally did it, Mom.

They love Ken. Yeah, they were like, what does he look like when he has normal hair? So I have to be like, this is what he normally looks like. So funny. And that's out next year, the Fall Guy. That'll be fun too as well, right? It's bonkers. It's so much fun.

Stick around for more of my conversation with Emily Blunt right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Emily Blunt. Now, what's crazy to me is that we're talking about the fall guy and we're talking about Oppenheimer and all this work that you had that came out this year, Pain Hustler. And yet this is the year you allegedly took off and slowed down a little bit. Yeah. Why are you being on a movie set? I was ready to take a break from being on a movie set for a little bit. And what brought that on?

Just family time? Yeah, just I guess everyone needs to take a breather sometimes, you know? And last year felt quite busy. And I always tried to take a few months off in between jobs, which usually works. But I think I was ready for something more expansive than that. And yeah, I think it's funny, it sort of turned into this theory that I was quoting Hollywood, which is not true. It was just taking... I didn't read it that way.

Okay, good. I'm glad. No, no, no. It has been magical. Yeah. To just sort of drift around, not doing very much all day and do the school run. And then I kind of drift around again. It's, I like to drift.

Yes. And I love a nap. Oh, are you a napper? I'm a napper. I do, um, I do transcendental meditation, but I don't think I do it right because you're supposed to sit up and do it like this. And I just am horizontal and I snore. I was like, I don't know if I'm doing it right, but it's very relaxing. So that's not meditation, that's sleeping.

It's just sleeping, really. And whenever I'm on a film set, if I've got some kind of fancy period hair-dew or I will literally sleep sitting up like a psychopath. Like, people I work with call them my psycho-naps. But it's a gift, though. It's a gift. Oh, yeah. I'm out. I'm out.

I love it. I need it. I love to nap. Love it. I wish I could nap better. I probably... Then you've got to start doing Transcendental Meditaph. Is that what it is?

Yeah, and you can do it wrong like me, and you'll feel very rested. I'm going to need your technique. Yeah. Nod right off. It would probably be good for you with your life and your early mornings. I think I need that. Imagine if you just fall asleep during an interview. Like right now, I'll give you some names once we're off the air.

Yes, please. Yeah, just some real snoozer. No, there's no snoozer. Now, we're talking about family. I mentioned that there had been some input from some viewers to the show. Okay, viewers or family? He claims he's a viewer. Oh, gosh.

A source very close to you, like this close. Yeah. And he asks me to ask you what he calls the $50,000 question. He said it'll be very revealing. This is from John Kay. For $50,000. Here in New York. Here it is.

Ready? Would you rather go on lovely date night with your husband, restaurant of your choosing, or stay home and watch the Great British Bake Off. I'm going to just get this wrong. I would much prefer to go on a lovely date night with my husband. Yes. No, he knows.

He knows. I'm obsessed with the Great British Bake Off. And you know what? There's always time in the day for that. So I'm going to choose a date. Okay. So between the naps? Between the naps, the school run.

and date night. We put it all together. I will be mainlining the great British baker into my veins. It is a great show in fairness. You know, it makes me miss England. It's just the irreverence, the kind of innuendos, they sneak in there. Yes. Oh, God, it's just heaven.

The attitude, I miss the attitude of England. They can't make them fast enough for you, can they? Oh, no, they can't. Like, churn them out. Need a new season. I really do. I'm almost done with this one. I'm on pastry week.

We need more. I think there's a Christmas special, so I think I'm all right. What are some of the highlights of pastry week, if you don't mind my asking? I mean, pastry's quite hard to get right. Sure. You know, there's shoe pastry, there's short crust, there's puff pastry, there's filo pastry. Yes. The list goes on.

Are you a chef at home? I do love to cook. You do, yeah. Very much. And you've got the pastry. What do they call? I'm not very good with the bag. I think I'm good with cookies and a cake.

Oh, I don't know if I didn't know if I need it. What's that? Anyone can do that. Do that. I need you to have a pastry bag. I've never done the icing, the frosting, artsy stuff. That's the next. The next evolution. Between the naps and the...

I was looking today at the scope of your career, and I found that it was almost exactly 20 years ago that you first appeared on screen in the television movie Budica. Oh, my God, yeah. It was... It was 20 years. It was 20 years ago. Have you, or do you stop and think about what's happened in the 20 years since? I mean, the young actress who just was hoping for the best and was enjoying working to get where you've gone now,

to be an Oppenheimer and everything else you've done. I do, I joke about disassociating, but there is truth in it because maybe it's just easier to wrap my arms around it if I, don't think about it too deeply. I feel once in a while I'll get hit with a wave of acknowledging the journey and like, I guess where I am now compared to where I was in the beginning. I think in the beginning, I don't remember having this fiery ambition for being here. I think I didn't go into the business with like rose-tinted glasses. my mom was an actress and had to give it all up to have too many children and

and I think I just was aware of the heartbreak of what the business can be as well and so I guess I just thought I'll give it a go and now thank God I gave it to go because I just completely passionate about it and I still want to keep challenging myself I want to be filled with terror and excitement every time I take on something new. I want that combination. I don't want to be safe. I want to keep striving for something new. This is why I need so many naps.

But I really, I really, I really am, I really am happy, you know, I really love it. And you've got so much road ahead of you. I mean, the possibilities are endless. Are there things you haven't done that you think about? I mean, you've done crazy successful horror with John. Yeah. I mean, you've done drama, you've done comedy. What else looks good to you as you view the menu of what you could do?

I don't know. I think it's directors. Like, there's directors I want to work with. Like, I want to work with people who are so visionary, with a singular spirited opinion on something. Like, I just want that. and I want to work with certain directors again as well. Maybe as you get older you want people who are who you know

and you see all of them and they see all of you and there's like a, you get something for free entering into that. It's trusted, it's wonderful. Like that, that would be cool to work with Chris again, to work with Deney Villeneuve. Like, I want to do all movies with Rob Marshall who's like uncle to my children. And so I think, I think that excites me

directors excite me. Well, you've earned your nap today. I know we're bumping up against nap and pastry time. It's like so much too much. I think I've missed my nap. Emily, you are such a joy. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Good to see you. Move to Brooklyn.

My big thanks to Emily for a great conversation with an assist from her husband, John Krasinski, who were told as an upcoming actor and director in his own right. Oppenheimer is still in select theaters and, of course, Available to stream at home now if you haven't seen it yet. My thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC.

I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.