For most, it was her fawningly fashionable performance in The Devil Wears Prada that made people stand up and take notice of British actress Emily Blunt.
Since then, she has kicked arse, flown through the air using an umbrella, grappled a werewolf and taken on Tom Cruise.
Not bad fora British actress who had no intention of being an actress. As she said on a press tour in 2016: "I didn't envision any of this. I wasn't intending to be an actress. I did a school play, and an agent came to see me, and within a year I'm on stage with Judi Dench."
She appeared with the acting legend in a West End production of The Royal Family in 2001. After a relatively short time appearing in British television shows, the actress found herself sharing the screen with the likes of Meryl Streep, Ewan McGregor, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and the aforementioned Cruise.
Emily Blunt in The Girl On The Train. Photo / Supplied
She has proven herself adept in any genre. From musicals like Within The Woods and Mary Poppins Returns, bloodcurdling horror like The Wolfman and bad taste comedies like The Five-Year Engagement; Blunt has always delivered.
Her performance in Denis Villeneuve's Sicario was the moment she proved she could also deliver a compelling, emotional character thrust into hell. Or in this case, a violent cartel ruled by Mexico.
She plays an idealistic FBI agent enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs across the US border. It's a tough watch. Blunt is the solitary female figure in a machismo-fuelled world and she more than holds her own against her illustrious co-stars including Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro and Daniel Kaluuya.
The actress told GQ: "I read it and I thought, I can't do this film. This is so dark. I've just become a mother, and this is not what I want to do. And Denis Villeneuve came to our house, and my daughter was four weeks old, and I was just sitting there, like, in my pyjamas, with no makeup on, just breastfeeding, and he was pitching me this movie!"
The house the actress was talking about is the home she has made with her husband, The Office star John Krasinski.
Emily Blunt, James Brolin and Benicio Del Toro in Sicario. Photo / Supplied
Then in 2016, Blunt played her first villain in The Huntsman: Winter's War. Starring opposite Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain and Nick Frost, the British actress played the Ice Queen Freya. It's a role she relishes and delights in playing the younger sister to Charlize Theron's Evil sorceress Queen Ravenna.
Next came the high-profile adaptation of The Girl On The Train, British author Paula Hawkins' popular 2015 debut novel of the same name. The American mystery psychological thriller film delved into the fractured mindset of a recovering alcoholic who obsesses about her ex-husband's "perfect" young next-door neighbours. Again, Blunt found herself in a stunning ensemble including Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, Edgar Ramírez and Lisa Kudrow.
And then came hushed horrors of A Quiet Place. Co-written, directed and starring her husband, the nerve-racking thriller about an alien invasion is a terrifying experience.
Set on a post-apocalyptic earth, the new world order is a dominant race of blind extraterrestrials with acute hearing who pounce on every sound and what's left of the human race. Blunt, and Krasinski play pregnant Evelyn and Lee Abbott, two such survivors who are trying to give their children, excellently portrayed by Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe, a quiet life. The film was a box office sensation that demanded to be seen in the cinema.
The sequel, headlined by Blunt, was one of the first films to pull audiences back into the cinema, during a lull in Covid-19 and is a masterclass in slowly built-up tension, whether you watch it at the cinema or the comfort of your own home.
Blunt talked to Deadline about the universal appeal of the two thrillers and the effect the films have had on her and her husband.
"People who hate genre movies loved this movie," she said. "People who had never seen a horror movie before loved this movie. It has been universal. The afterlife that it has had, it's not something either of us really know how to contend with, but it's wonderful."
A Quiet Place Part II. Photo / AP
Blunt will soon be seen in two big-budget actioners. One is Live Die Repeat and Repeat, the sequel to The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman's Edge Of Tomorrow, the cerebral action film that saw the actress taking on Tom Cruise, multiple times, and winning. It's Groundhog Day for the action generation.
And talking of action, she'll next be appearing with Dwayne Johnson, The Rock himself, in Disney's Jungle Cruise, an adventure film based around the Disneyland theme park ride of the same name.
Having proved herself again and again to be a master of every genre she tackles, we know that whatever the challenges that face Blunt, including a third instalment of the A Quiet Place franchise, it's always a joy to see Emily play.
