Emily Blunt is sick of “strong female lead” roles. Speaking with The Telegraph (via IndieWire), Blunt said that she’s instantly bored when she sees “strong female lead” as a character description in scripts and describes the stereotypical character as “the worst thing ever”. Blunt told the outlet that anytime she encounters that sort of description of a character in a potential project, she’s simply not interested.
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“It’s the worst thing ever when you open a script and read the words ‘strong female lead,’” Blunt said. “That makes me roll my eyes. I’m already out. I’m bored. Those roles are written as incredibly stoic, you spend the whole time acting tough and saying tough things.”
As for her character in The English, Cornelia, Blunt explained that she was immediately interested in her. Blunt explained that she loves a character with a secret and Cornelia certainly fit the bill.
“I love a character with a secret,” Blunt said. “And I loved Cornelia’s buoyancy, her hopefulness, her guilelessness… Cornelia is more surprising than that. She’s innocent without being naive and that makes her a force to be reckoned with. She startles Eli out of his silence and their differences become irrelevant because they need each other to survive. I thought that was cool.”
What is The English about?
Here’s the official synopsis for the series: An epic chase Western, The English takes the core themes of identity and revenge to tell a uniquely compelling parable on race, power, and love. An aristocratic Englishwoman, Lady Cornelia Locke, and a Pawnee ex-cavalry scout, Eli Whipp, come together in 1890 middle America to cross a violent landscape built on dreams and blood. Both of them have a clear sense of their destiny, but neither is aware that it is rooted in a shared past. They must face increasingly terrifying obstacles that will test them to their limits, physically and psychologically. But as each obstacle is overcome, it draws them closer to their ultimate destination-the new town of Hoxem, Wyoming. It is here, after an investigation by the local sheriff Robert Marshall and young widow Martha Myers into a series of bizarre and macabre unsolved murders, that the full extent of their intertwined history will be truly understood, and they will come face-to-face with the future they must live.
The English is written and directed by Hugo Blick. Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer head up a cast that includes Rafe Spall, Tom Hughes, Stephen Rea, Valerie Pachner, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Malcolm Storry, Steve Wall, Nichola McAuliffe, Sule Rimi, Cristian Solimeno, Nakota Kennedy, and Miguel Alvarez.
The English is now streaming on Prime Video.
