Emily Blunt’s Oscar Journey: From Stammer to Stardom

There was a time feared she may never find her voice. As a child growing up in a leafy London suburb, she was plagued by a stutter so severe her parents feared their shy, withdrawn child would struggle to succeed in life.

Today, of course, she is one of Britain's biggest stars with a portfolio of Hollywood blockbusters that have taken a staggering $5 billion at the global box office and earned her a reported $80 million (£59 million) fortune along the way.

Now she is starring in what could become her biggest hit ever – 's sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, which opens in the UK on June 10 and is tipped to win her an Oscar.

The latest trailer for the film, released this week, has lit up social media as Emily, playing small-town weather girl Margaret Fairchild, breaks down live on air and 'channels' life by making eerie clicking sounds.

The deeply unsettling noise freaked out fans, with one writing on X: 'That clicking sound genuinely made my skin crawl.' Another declared: 'Emily Blunt just unlocked a new fear.'

Some have speculated that Spielberg used to create the other-worldly 'language' but, in fact, it was 43-year-old Emily who improvised the noises during the four-minute scene. She explained: 'There are various ways you could do it. You could go the AI route, which I'm a bit terrified of. I thought that I could make some really strange sounds so I said, 'Maybe I could come in and we'll just do a range of weird sounds?'

A sound designer pulled together the finished product, which is an eerie mix of Blunt's clicking, breathing, consonants and humming.

Critics have hailed the movie as Spielberg's best film in decades, with one studio executive telling The Mail on Sunday: 'I'm convinced Emily will win an Oscar for it. It's an outstanding performance and she totally steals the movie from Josh O'Connor [who ] and Colin Firth who is brilliant in everything he does.'

They insisted: 'This film sits alongside ET and Close Encounters as one of Spielberg's best, and Emily is the beating heart of it.'

Emily has already proved that she's the most bankable British star of all time thanks to The Devil Wears Prada and its highly anticipated sequel, which has already taken more than £445.8 million since its release earlier this month.

Her other biggest-grossing films have been Oppenheimer (£724 million), A Quiet Place and its sequel (£371 million) and Edge Of Tomorrow (£275 million). An early colleague of Emily's says the star is 'known as one of the nicest people to work with'.

'She's fiercely professional and always comes prepared but she's kind and empathetic on set, probably because of the struggles she went through to communicate as a kid,' the former colleague adds.

The actress has spoken candidly about her stammer, revealing that, at its worst, she could barely get any words out at all.

Born the second of four children into an upper middle-class family in Roehampton, south-west London, her barrister father Oliver and mother Joanna, a former actress turned teacher, did everything they could to help their daughter overcome her stutter.

Emily said: 'I was a very intelligent child and had a lot to say but I just couldn't say it. My parents were fantastic and hired speech therapists but I was painfully self-conscious at school.'

Reading aloud became a 'source of constant fear', while ordering food in restaurants triggered panic attacks and even saying her own name was something she struggled with. 'You can substitute other words for ones you know will trip you up but when it comes to saying my own name I can't substitute that. I still suffer and it gets worse under stress or fatigue.'

The turning point arrived when she was 12 and a teacher encouraged her to try acting after noticing Emily's stutter disappeared when she put on a jokey northern accent in class.

Blunt has described acting as something that 'freed' her.

'When I altered my voice or rhythm of speech the stammer began to disappear.'

As her confidence grew, so did her ambition. She studied drama at Hurtwood House, a creative arts school in Surrey, and landed small roles in TV shows like Foyle's War and the BBC film Gideon's Daughter. Then came a supporting role in a film her agent described as 'a small fashion movie'.

That film was 2006's The Devil and Emily's brilliant portrayal of a caustic, calorie-counting personal assistant at a glossy fashion magazine made her the toast of Hollywood.

'She is so versatile,' the studio executive said. 'There are very few actresses who can hold their own with Tom Cruise in an action movie [Edge Of Tomorrow] and opposite Meryl Streep in a comedy. Emily is the total package.'

She moved to Hollywood and dated Canadian singer Michael Buble for nearly three years before meeting actor John Krasinski, star of the US version of The Office, at a restaurant.

Krasinski, 46, has joked about having a case of 'instantaneous, staggering infatuation' and believed that 'she was totally out of my league'.

That fear was seemingly reinforced by a stoney-faced immigration officer at Heathrow airport. When Krasinski was a guest on Graham Norton's sofa, he recalled the officer, during one of his trips to the UK to visit Emily, looked incredulous when he explained who his partner was. 'You?!' the officer exclaimed. 'She chose you?'

The couple The colleague who worked with her said: 'They've got a reputation as being one of the happiest couples in Hollywood.

'When you see them together they are genuinely affectionate and very funny. They're always giggling on the red carpet. Emily is self-deprecating and charming. Everyone loves her.'

The couple live in an £8 million brownstone in Brooklyn and have two daughters, Hazel, 12, and nine-year-old Violet. The colleague said: 'When they're not working they have a tight circle of friends who they see for dinner, mostly at each other's houses.'

The tightest of which is Emily's older sister, literary agent Felicity Blunt, who is married to actor Stanley Tucci, Emily's Devil Prada co-star.

Krasinski boosted the couple's already sizable fortune when he . The couple had a 'back-end deal' to share in the profits of the films, which took £371 million at the global box office.

Their combined fortune is now a reported £111 million.

While Spielberg has been keeping the details of Disclosure Day's plot under wraps, Emily is in the middle of a tour to promote the movie with the film's UK premiere in London on Thursday.

She 'screamed in delight' when Spielberg first phoned her about the film, which was so shrouded in secrecy the script was printed on paper that was impossible to copy.

She said: 'I was so awestruck to get his call. I was trying not to dork out and talk to him about the endless scenes from Jaws that I've been obsessed with for years. I saw Jaws when I was eight years old. It's my favourite film.'

The acclaimed director, who has won three Oscars, called Emily's four-minute uninterrupted take when she created the alien 'voice' as one of the most brilliant performances he has ever seen.

Spielberg placed one microphone near her lips and had another pressed against her throat to capture the guttural sounds she was making. And the veteran director has only added to the hype around his film by teasing that he believes aliens are real.

He said: 'I am much more inclined now than I was when I made Close Encounters to believe that we're not the only intelligent civilisation in the universe.

'I used to say to myself, wouldn't it be wonderful if all this turned out to be true. I'm now thinking wouldn't it be wonderful for people to know all of this is true.'

Film critic Steve Weintraub from the Collider website saw the film and said: 'In a shock to absolutely no one, Steven Spielberg has .

'I could go on and on about what I loved but I was lucky enough to see the movie knowing almost nothing and I strongly recommend you do the same.

'Emily Blunt is incredible. I know big summer movies aren't usually the kinds of performances that get awards-season attention but once people see what she does in this…'

Indeed, it promises to be a performance to match her stratospheric career, which has seen her overcome a childhood stutter in the most stellar way imaginable.