Emily Blunt did not mince words when she described her physical appearance in the upcoming film, “The Girl On The Train.”
“I look awful in the movie and I look like a ghoul,” Blunt told CNN in a recent interview. “I think any concern people had that I might not look right for [the part] will be put to bed when people see the film.”
Blunt stars as troubled alcoholic Rachel Watson in “The Girl on the Train,” based on the best selling book of the same name. The actress said she went to great lengths to stay true to her character in the story.
“There was a lot of specific really kind of makeup tricks that my amazing makeup artist did,” Blunt said. “We had pulled up tons of pictures of alcoholics — what happens to their skin, what do their eyes look like. I often had a full contact lense that covered my whole eye that gave the whites of the eyes that kind of bloodshot look.”
Blunt’s co-star, Justin Theroux, who plays her ex-husband in the film, told CNN that the movie really highlights the devastating effects of alcoholism — and blackouts.
“You’re still conscious in a blackout but the part of your brain that is in a blackout has just stopped recording it,” Theroux said. “It’s only the following day that you’re not present, where you have no memory of it.”
Blunt echoed his sentiments and said this movie helped her understand that alcoholism is a disease.
“I think it’s pretty apparent that kind of addiction is a frightening thing,” she said. “I have great empathy and great sympathy for people who have taken life’s setbacks very hard and have turned to drink. I understand it so much more now.”
Blunt said the complicated mystery featured in “The Girl on the Train” appealed to her.
“I think that’s the allure of this film — the perfect cookie cutter white picketed fenced houses and the underbelly of what goes on behind closed doors,” she said. “Suburban bliss maybe not being what it seems.”
“Girl On The Train” releases in theaters October 7.
