Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci have one of Hollywood’s more unusual working relationships: they are co-stars, family members and apparently far too disruptive to be put in scenes together.
The pair, who reunite for The Devil Wears Prada 2 alongside Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, are real-life in-laws.
Tucci is married to Emily’s older sister Felicity Blunt, a connection that began, fittingly, at the premiere of the original Devil Wears Prada in 2006.
When the sequel filmed in Italy, both families came along for the ride. Emily and her husband John Krasinski brought their daughters Hazel, 12, and Violet, 9, while Tucci and Felicity were joined by their children Matteo, 11, and Emilia, 8.
“It was great, because we travel a lot together,” Tucci told E! News.
“Their kids are the same age for the most part, and they’re best friends. To have it sort of cross over with work was just, like, weird.”
While the adults cooked together and made cocktails, the children did what children do.
“The kids are running around,” Tucci said. “We never see them,” Blunt added. “They’re sort of feral.”
Their easy chemistry on set, it seems, was exactly the problem. The production kept them largely apart.
“We barely had any scenes together,” Blunt said with mock despair.
“It was like they separated the naughty kids.” She added: “We laughed way too much. We know each other. We are over related at this point.”
The original film carries particular sentimental weight for both of them. Not only did Tucci meet Felicity at its premiere, but he also played an inadvertent role in brokering Emily’s friendship with Meryl Streep.
When filming wrapped on the first movie, Tucci encouraged Emily to go and say goodbye to Streep before leaving the set, something she was clearly nervous about, given Streep’s famously immersive approach to the role of Miranda Priestly.
Tucci went to Streep’s trailer to let her know Emily was done.
“She came out of her trailer, and the wig was off, she had a black puffy coat on, and she ran towards me, and she went, ‘You were so great!'” Blunt recalled.
“And I cried all the way home. Because you don’t know. She was, like, removed.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens in cinemas on 1 May.
