Emily BLUNT

The charismatic star works her magic again in The Smashing Machine.

- PHOTOGRAPHED BY JASON NOCITO STYLED BY JAN-MICHAEL QUAMMIE

Jacket, SCHIAPARELLI. Earrings, GUCCI.

EMILY BLUNT WILL NEVER FORGET her audition for her first film, 2004’s My Summer of Love, a lusty British friendship drama by Polish-born director Pawel Pawlikowski.

She was 19 and had dabbled in TV and theater, but had no formal training. Oh, and the film? It was entirely improvised.

“Pawel sat by the window and he had this mad hair,” Blunt says, swirling her hands above her head to conjure the director's coif. “He’s filming me on his camcorder?” Blunt says. “And in his Polish accent,” she continues, putting on an impression, “he goes, ‘Okay, so we're going to do a little reading. You look out the window and you see your dad and he’s fucking his secretary, and I want you to be horrified. You get very, very mad. Then get very upset and cry. And then at some point, pretend the whole thing’s a joke. Okay, go.’”

“He gave me no opportunity, but to put my feet to the fire,” Blunt adds. She called her agent after and told him how embarrassed she was, how awful she’d performed, how she'd never get the part. But then, of course, she did. Blunt remembers running around wild in the mansion they filmed in with costar Natalie Press, doing Ouija boards and exploring their characters’ “eruptive and passionate” relationship during one “long, hot English summer.”

Jacket, top, MCQUEEN. Mules, JIMMY CHOO.

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"You do wait to be possessed in some way. It's like that feeling of dipping a toe in until you are submerged."