How Emily Blunt lost her stutter
The actress developed a debilitating stutter at the age of 7, and she went for years barely speaking until a high school teacher suggested she act in a school play.
Emily Blunt used to dread opening her mouth. The 27-year-old British actress developed a debilitating stutter at the age of 7. By the time she was 12, she was so embarrassed by her inability to put words together fluently that she all but stopped speaking. “It was absolutely awful,” she tells British Elle. “You feel like there’s an impostor living inside you who is misrepresenting who you really are. You don’t want to be accepted for being that person, but at the same time you do, and you don’t want people to finish your sentences, yet you breathe a sigh of relief when someone does.”
Blunt went for years barely speaking until a high school teacher suggested she act in a school play. “What if you speak in an accent?” her teacher suggested. Reluctantly, she tried it. “I spoke fluidly for the first time in my life in some northern English accent, probably the hokiest you’ve ever heard,” she recalls. Years later, she’s all but overcome the disorder, though she admits she has trouble sometimes when talking on the phone. “It’s very common for stutterers to not be able to say their own name, and when someone asks who’s calling, I’ll be like, ‘F--k!’”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Saint Paul de Vence: a paradise for art lovers
The Week Recommends The hilltop gem in the French Riviera where 20th century modernism flourished
By Alexandra Zagalsky Published
-
'People in general want workers to earn a decent living'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
What might a Trump victory mean for the global economy?
Today's Big Question A second term in office for the 'America First' administration would send shockwaves far beyond the United States' shores
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published