In Sicario, Emily Blunt explores how female FBI agents handle stress and trauma
The actress quizzed female agents about how their work affects the rest of their life, in preparation for her latest role
At one point, potential backers of the movie encouraged its screenwriter to rewrite the lead character as a man so as to attract a big-name male star. But Taylor Sheridan didn't find that to be a compelling enough reason to shift his story's focus.
Instead, the character, a devoted FBI field agent drawn into a shadowy drug-war operation on the US-Mexico border, is played by one of Hollywood's most mutable actresses, Emily Blunt.
"There was some initial pressure there for the rather gross fact that you could up the budget by another third if you make it a guy," Blunt says of early discussions about rewriting her character. "That's so gross. You completely alter the dynamic of the piece. The interesting fact for the audience is that she is a woman. There's something unusual about that."
An action-driven thriller directed by Denis Villeneuve, kicks off when FBI agent Kate Macer discovers a cartel house stuffed with dead bodies. Although Blunt believably embodies a steely law woman, the actress says she was drawn into the film by what happens when Kate removes her bulletproof vest.
Explaining what intrigued her when she first read the script for , Blunt says, "the reveal of those bodies, and then all the images of Kate's apartment and the loneliness of her life. To go from that dynamic, crazy, traumatic experience to what happens in the aftermath, when people go home and they have to go to bed, that was what interested me."
