Twenty years after the first film, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt are back as Miranda Priestly and Emily Charlton. In this interview for Heart, the two actresses talk about reuniting, a phone call to Lady Gaga, and why Miranda has not mellowed as much as people think.
A “20-year family”
For Streep and Blunt, the reunion felt effortless. They have seen a lot of each other over the years, and the cast describe themselves as a twenty-year family; they even share a group chat, mainly to complain about doing press. Revisiting a character is also a rare chance, Streep says, to fix what you did not like the first time.
Working with Stanley Tucci again proved harder than expected, for one reason: Blunt says she managed just one take without laughing, because she simply cannot be mean to him. Tucci, who is also her brother-in-law, “held out for the big bucks”, the two joke.
Has Miranda gone soft?
The interviewer found the sequel sweeter and more vulnerable than the original. Streep is always surprised by that reaction. In the first five minutes, she points out, Miranda tells someone that all she has to do is wait for them to fail. She enjoyed improvising lines she was sure would be cut, only to find them in the finished film.
Blunt’s Emily has climbed the ladder and is “a bit more sharky” with her new power. But it is performative, she says: the character is still “quivering with insecurity” and desperate for approval she may never get. “I think she’s a lunatic and I just have a lot of fun.”
The call to Lady Gaga
In the film, Miranda has to persuade Lady Gaga to save a fashion show. Off screen, Streep did the same thing. She rang Gaga herself, from a dinner in Islington, to ask her to take part, and Gaga said yes at once, in the middle of a world tour. Streep calls her “a creative storm”.
The costumes, Streep adds, will be auctioned for a good cause. Blunt’s next release is Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, due in June, and she has just finished a small film in Ireland with Andrew Scott and Ciarán Hinds, a shoot she describes as magical.