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Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep became very familiar with each other after their work on Devil Wears Prada. After collaborating, Streep shared her true feelings about her co-star’s acting abilities. And they were words that stuck with Blunt for a long time.

How Emily Blunt responded to Meryl Streep’s comments about her acting

Emily Blunt posing in an orange dress at 'The Fall Guy' premiere.
Emily Blunt | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Blunt and Streep first worked alongside each other in the film The Devil Wears Prada. Blunt was cast as Streep’s assistant in the feature, and she admitted to being very nervous about the film. Blunt was still a relative newcomer at the time, and she’d be sharing the screen with one of her favorite actors.

“The table read was hell,” Blunt recalled on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Meryl Streep was there. I was 22, it was really scary. I just remember that sweaty-palmed feeling of turning the pages and knowing my first line was coming up, you know. I don’t think Meryl had even entered the movie at that point. I was just terrified.”

Fortunately, Streep was able to put her somewhat at ease during the film’s table read.

“And then I remember I said my first line, which I think was ‘Human resources certainly have an odd sense of humor.’ And I remember Meryl going, [chuckles]. And I was so grateful. It was just this little chortle she gave, and it was just really reassuring,” Blunt remembered.

But perhaps what might’ve floored Blunt even more was the Oscar-winner’s comments about her acting. According to Contact Music, Streep had a lot of high praise for her co-star. She called Blunt the ”best young actress I’ve worked with in some time, perhaps ever.'”

Blunt couldn’t help but gush at the words.

”I still die [over that compliment]. It was a little bit mind-blowing,” she said. ”I think my hair blew back, actually, when I read it. You do a little dance and then you realize you’ve got to try and live up to it.”

Emily Blunt once joked that she saved Meryl Streep’s life in ‘Into the Woods’

Blunt and Streep would team up once again for the feature Into the Woods. By then, it seemed Blunt warmed up to her co-star, who she quipped took a more motherly approach in their second collaboration.

“Meryl was like a mama bear on set,” Blunt joked to Vulture. “She was always on pee patrol, making sure I got time to pee whenever I wanted to. ‘Guys, cut! Emily needs to use the bathroom — again!’ It was that kind of thing.”

The Quiet Place star also joked that she ended up saving Streep’s life doing Into the Woods. Although she later felt the joke might’ve been taken too seriously by the media.

“That’s been completely blown out of proportion,” she said. “I kind of caught her arm when she was falling off a table, but it’s not as big of a deal as everyone’s made it out to be. That’s not just me being modest. It’s really not. But the guys just kind of stood there, with their jaws open. You know when scary things happen and everything kind of slows down? It was one of those, but it was totally fine.”

Emily Blunt noticed a pattern while working with Meryl Streep in ‘Mary Poppins Returns’

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Blunt and Streep reunited for a third time in the feature Mary Poppins Returns. Blunt would play the titular character, and Streep would portray Mary Poppins’ cousin Topsy. It was in this movie that Blunt noticed a funny connection between their roles over the years.

“It is a bit hilarious that we always play people who are contentious with one another,” Blunt mentioned to Entertainment Weekly. “From Prada to the Witch and the Baker’s Wife and now to cousins who drive each other insane, I did finally ask her, ‘When are we gonna play lovers or something?!’ She said, ‘Dream on.’”

During the interview, the Oscar winner further commented on what it was like watching Blunt’s growth over the years.

“I think Emily’s completely the same person that she was when I met her,” Streep said. “In The Devil Wears Prada, she was some preposterously young age — I think she was 21? Ridiculous! — but she was completely the person that she is today. She was already a pretty fully-fledged grown up, or did a good impersonation of one.”