When someone like Emily Blunt offers you life advice, you take it. “You’ll see, when you hit 40, you’ll give zero ducks,” she says, passing along wisdom from her nanny, Tina (who never swears). Blunt chuckles, “And it’s true! It happens almost overnight. You’re like, who cares?”

And if there’s anyone who has mastered the art of giving zero ducks while thriving at full throttle, it’s Emily Blunt. At 42, the actress has built a career spanning iconic comedies to pulse-pounding thrillers, with her trademark charm, biting humour, and enviable self-awareness always in tow. True to form, she’s blissfully absent from social media, a quiet declaration that she’s far too busy living life to curate it for the internet.

On the night of our call, Emily Blunt dials in at exactly 10:30 p.m. Hong Kong time. British punctuality at its finest. “Hello, Kaitlyn, how are you?” she greets me with a smile, her voice as crisp and magnetic as you’d expect from the woman who can turn even a snide remark into cinematic gold — think Emily Charlton and her biting critique of Andy Sachs’ grey argyle print skirt in The Devil Wears Prada.

Honestly, if Blunt ever told me to attend a hideous skirt convention, I would.

Nearly two decades after serving as the ultimate second-in-command in the iconic fashion film, Emily Charlton finally landed the top job: Favourite Character Mum Has Ever Played, as voted by the board of directors in Blunt’s household — her daughters. “My children think I’m the meanest person in the world in [The Devil Wears Prada], which is true,” she chuckles. “They told me their friends were all talking about the film, and I suddenly realised that they are now old enough to understand it. It was really cool showing it to them.”

Emily Blunt is the kind of actress whose name alone conjures a highlight reel of iconic roles, from a singing nanny in Mary Poppins Returns to a fiercely resilient mother in A Quiet Place and a defiant yet devoted wife in Oppenheimer. Her versatility isn’t just impressive — it’s why you never know what to expect from her, but you’re always glad to see her on screen. This chameleon-like ability to inhabit vastly different characters stems from her willingness to embrace the complexities and contradictions that come with being human, a quality she brings to every role with refreshing candour.

“I enjoy playing people who have some kind of conflict going on because I think, as human beings, we are perpetually at war with ourselves,” Blunt explains. “So, I’m not so interested in playing someone who has all the answers or is kind of pulled together. And likewise, I’m not so interested in playing people who are always invincible or heroic. I think the best kind of heroes are the ones who are sort of white-knuckling their way through a situation.” It is this fascination with such nuanced characters that makes Blunt’s performances so profoundly human, because, really, who isn’t hard to crack?

This October, Blunt is set to make waves once again in The Smashing Machine, where she plays Dawn Staples, the ex-wife of UFC champion Mark Kerr. The biographical sports drama film, directed by Benny Safdie, explores not just the brutal nature of MMA but also the raw, unfiltered emotions behind the scenes. It is about what it means to fight — not just in the ring, but for the people you love.

For Blunt, playing Dawn was a lesson on what it truly means to step into another person’s shoes. “They (Mark and Dawn) had the full weather system of a relationship,” she shares. “I had to approach my character with a great deal of empathy. I had to be this person’s advocate. Dawn Staples is still alive, and I’ve become close to her. She’s an incredible person, and I wanted to be her advocate, even though she had done many things she regretted. Approaching her with empathy, even when she was wild and broken, was the needle to thread.”

The actress spent hours on calls with Dawn, asking questions, listening to her stories, and immersing herself in the documentary footage of their lives. “I’m so grateful to her because she was so open, self-aware, and honest about what happened,” Blunt says. “I’ve never had this gift before, the gift of playing someone who’s still with us and as willing and generous as Dawn was to speak to me.”

“I think, in a way, the movie is Trojan-horsed as an MMA movie, but that’s really just the backdrop. The film is about struggle,” she continues. “When you see the struggle behind the image of the guy with his fist in the air, it’s really eye-opening.” Kerr, in particular, described his experience to Blunt as something primal and animalistic: “He could smell their sweat, what they’d eaten for breakfast, even the iron in their blood,” Blunt shares with a mix of awe and unease. Yet, in stark contrast to his ferocity in the ring, Kerr is soft-spoken, eloquent, and unfailingly kind.

“[Mark] also laid his soul bare to all of us. From [him and Dawn], we were able to gather real information, real moments, real regret, real pain, and real love,” the actress reflects with gratitude. “For them to see the movie was nerve-wracking for all of us. They were rocked by it, and we were so thankful afterwards because they felt seen and represented in all the peaks and valleys of what happened. That was truly an exhale. It’s nerve-wracking to show someone your version of them.”