Rocking an 85-pound exoskeleton and getting some tough love from Tom Cruise. This is how Emily Blunt got into tip-top shape for "Edge of Tomorrow!"
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00:00Rocking an 85-pound exoskeleton and getting some tough love from Tom Cruise,
00:06this is how Emily Blunt got into tip-top shape for Edge of Tomorrow.
00:10In order to prepare her for the role of Rita, Emily Blunt trained for two and a half months
00:15prior to shooting. She worked with Jason Walsh, a trainer who has collaborated with a plethora of
00:20celebrity clients. His Instagram features photos of him training with Brie Larson,
00:24Donald Glover, Bradley Cooper, Pedro Pascal, Miles Teller, and others.
00:30Training Blunt for this intense role was likely just another Tuesday for him.
00:34Walsh's company, Rise Nation, started as a way for people to train their bodies as an athlete
00:39would. Walsh applied that philosophy when training Blunt. As he put it via Women's Health,
00:44"'What I specialize in is figuring out where the weak points are. It's like building the
00:48foundation of a house. You never, ever want to have any cracks because she would be carrying
00:54around an 85-pound exoskeleton for a lot of the film."
00:57For Walsh, it was all about building up Blunt's resilience so the cracks would never show.
01:02He helped strengthen Blunt's body so she would be prepared to run,
01:06jump, and do whatever else she needed to in her suit. Luckily,
01:10she'd already worked with Walsh before signing on for Edge of Tomorrow,
01:13and Walsh described their relationship as already having a decent foundation,
01:18leaving them with an excellent idea of how to work together.
01:21"'You're gonna get me there, and I'm gonna kill it.'"
01:25The exoskeleton armor we see Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise wearing in the film is pretty heavy
01:30duty. It was designed by Pierre Bohanna, who worked on the Dark Knight trilogy,
01:34creating Batman's suit. However, he truly outdid himself while working on Edge of Tomorrow,
01:40as the massive mechanical suit weighed in at 85 pounds, according to EW.
01:45Bohanna shared that his team made the suit themselves and that it's made up of over
01:49400 different pieces of machinery and hardware, over half of them custom-made,
01:54which is what he specializes in. As he told EW,
01:57"'You set up a manufacturing process that's bespoke to it. All the CAD drawing,
02:01all the prototype work, all the molding, the casting, the fabrication, artwork,
02:04and assembly were all done in-house.'"
02:07Bohanna also shared that he looked at real models to inspire the suit's design,
02:11stating that bionics used to help paraplegic walk was a big inspiration for his team.
02:16Because of this, Blunt trained to carry an additional 50 to 60 pounds safely on her body.
02:21Walsh shared with Women's Health that, while he wanted her to be prepared,
02:24he also wanted to ensure that she was training in a safe environment. Above all else,
02:29her safety was most important, so she took part in a lot of stretching and cardio to build up her
02:34stamina. Once Emily Blunt showed up on set for filming, Tom Cruise was incredibly impressed
02:40with her dedication and all of the work she put in beforehand to bring Rita to life.
02:44According to Walsh, Cruise complimented the actress by saying that he's never worked with
02:48someone who came as prepared for the action scenes as she was. Therefore,
02:52he wanted them to work out together, in addition to her training with the stunt crew.
02:56Cruise and Blunt worked out to keep up the momentum and stay in shape.
03:00Blunt shared that everything about shooting Edge of Tomorrow aimed to capture some realism,
03:05or at least as real as a sci-fi film about aliens invading and time travel can be.
03:10Blunt said on the Smart List podcast,
03:12"...we had to wear these enormous robotic suits. I think it would have been great if
03:16they could have CGI'd them, but we wanted to do it practically in a tactile way."
03:20In other words, they wanted it to be as real as possible, and the only way to do that was
03:25to put in the work. Cruise has long been known for doing all his own stunts, like when he famously
03:30held onto a moving plane in Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, flew in a real fighter jet for his
03:36stunt scenes in Top Gun Maverick, and climbed up the Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible Ghost
03:42Protocol. Some stunt scenes in Cruise's movies nearly killed him, illustrating his daredevil
03:47nature. Now Blunt can say that she was right up there with him for this film.
03:52In order to increase her endurance, Emily Blunt worked tirelessly on her cardio. Her
03:57trainer for Edge of Tomorrow, Jason Walsh, told Women's Health,
04:00"...we worked to make sure she had mobility in her joints, and then flexibility and base strength."
04:06"...once her body was resilient and strong enough, and she had a lot of endurance,
04:09I took her out to the UCLA track to really condition her. She did tons and tons of
04:15sprints up the stairs."
04:16Once Blunt's endurance was good enough, Walsh began adding pounds to the actress with a weighted
04:21vest. However, it was important to not start off with 60 pounds. Instead, Walsh started with 10
04:26pounds before gradually moving up the ladder. Once Blunt was ready, they moved up to 20 pounds,
04:32and continued to climb at 10-pound intervals.
04:34Walsh argues that training is all about challenging yourself to find enjoyment,
04:39even when it's hard. And that's the secret sauce that makes training so powerful,
04:43especially for a role like Rita in Edge of Tomorrow. For Walsh, it's a good thing when
04:48strenuous workouts become habitual. By then, you're at a place where you can really push
04:53yourself. According to the trainer, that's when it becomes fun.
04:57During her time on the Smart List podcast, Emily Blunt shared a moment she and Tom
05:02Cruise had together while filming Edge of Tomorrow. She recalled when she put on the
05:0685-pound exoskeleton armor, she started crying as it was so heavy and overwhelming for her.
05:12At the time, she didn't want to cry in front of everyone, but she felt
05:15very strongly about the cumbersome gear. She expressed to Cruise that she wasn't
05:20sure how she would be able to play Rita and was feeling really panicky about the shoot.
05:24She said Cruise was initially so surprised that he froze, not knowing how to comfort her. However,
05:29once he composed himself, he opted for a joke, telling her,
05:32"'Come on, stop being such a b----, okay?"
05:34Luckily, that gave her a good laugh and helped her get into the mindset to do their job.
05:39She referred back to the weeks of training she'd just endured to play Rita and was able
05:43to step back into the role. While there are some who have taken offense to this exchange,
05:47Blunt has maintained that it was only meant to motivate her. According to the actress,
05:51it was a lighthearted moment, not an offensive one. She shared that this
05:54joke is something she and Cruise still laugh about to this day, via E! News.
05:59Due to her extreme training, Emily Blunt was able to do most of her own stunts in
06:04Edge of Tomorrow. However, that didn't prepare her for one of the most intense stunts of all,
06:10a car crash. During her time on Conan, Blunt detailed a scene she and Tom Cruise share
06:14when she's driving a car at high speed. She and Cruise are attempting to escape from a
06:18mimic that's attacking them from behind. Blunt's character Rita is driving while
06:22Cruise's character Cage is shooting at the creature. Blunt shared how she was initially
06:26annoyed with Cruise as he was muttering instructions on how to drive under his breath,
06:30stating that Cruise is not particularly comfortable being hands-off.
06:35"...I don't think it's in his fabric to like being a passenger in a stunt driving scene."
06:39However, she quickly learned that he was trying to help her as he'd done a fair amount of stunt
06:44driving before and knew when it was time for her to hit the brakes. And since Blunt was driving
06:48the car extremely fast, per the director's instructions, by the time she realized her
06:53mistake, it was too late, and they crashed into a tree.
06:56"'Cause as if I thought I knew more about stunt driving than Tom Cruise."
06:59Luckily, the two made it out okay, with her jokingly telling Cruise that she found his
07:03comments to be incredibly annoying. Luckily, they laughed it off and moved on, most likely
07:08with a different car.
07:09Edge of Tomorrow was released in 2014, and since then, Emily Blunt has continued to express
07:15interest in fitness and training. While she was initially a client of her Edge of Tomorrow
07:20trainer Jason Walsh, Blunt has also been working with trainer Monique Eastwood for
07:24everyday workouts. According to Women's Health, Blunt has trained with Eastwood for several
07:28years, even bringing in her brother-in-law, fellow actor Stanley Tucci, as one of Eastwood's
07:33clients. According to Eastwood's testimonials, she has racked up quite a few celebrity clients
07:38outside of Blunt's talented family. Eastwood has worked with actor Sam Rockwell, downhill
07:43skier Jack Gower, actress Ruth Wilson, and Captain America the First Avengers star Hayley Atwell.
07:50Though Blunt trained with Walsh for Edge of Tomorrow, Eastwood did tell Women's Health that
07:54she helped to prep Blunt before training with Walsh began. She shared that they worked on
07:58cardio fitness and muscular endurance to prepare for filming.
08:01In the same year that Edge of Tomorrow was released, Emily Blunt also starred in the
08:05musical film Into the Woods. The actress began filming after her work on Edge of Tomorrow,
08:10but had become pregnant in the interim. This time, she worked with Monique Eastwood as her trainer,
08:15who took extra care when building workout plans to compensate for Blunt's pregnancy with her
08:19eldest daughter, Hazel. Eastwood recalls that she had to adapt her training regimen to ensure
08:24Blunt would be okay with the demands of working on a musical set. Eastwood shared with Women's
08:28Health,
08:29"...the priority was to make sure we did not exhaust her, as she had a singing and dancing
08:33role whilst being pregnant."
08:35Luckily, this was completely in Eastwood's wheelhouse, as the trainer was once a former
08:40dancer, and working with a pregnant Blunt during musical numbers was incredibly familiar for her.
08:45It's clear that all the training she experienced with Walsh for Edge of Tomorrow prepared Blunt
08:51to tackle the demands of this role while she was pregnant, and in the end, the physical
08:55requirements for the films Into the Woods and Edge of Tomorrow were impressive hurdles
09:00for the actress to overcome.