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Gary Thompson: Emily Blunt loved her role in 'The Devil Wears Prada'

"THE DEVIL Wears Prada" made Meryl Streep a hot box office commodity, and was a nice showcase for star Anne Hathaway.

"THE DEVIL Wears Prada" made Meryl Streep a hot box office commodity, and was a nice showcase for star Anne Hathaway.

But think back to when you first saw it, to the performance that really jumped out at you, to the question on everyone's lips when they left the theater - who was that British girl?

Her name is Emily Blunt, and she readily acknowledges that "Prada" launched her to top-of-the-marquee stardom, the title character in "Young Victoria," romantic lead to Matt Damon in "The Adjustment Bureau," to Jason Segel in next month's rom-com "The Five-Year Engagement," to Ewan McGregor in "Salmon Fishing in Yemen," opening today.

"It's the movie people talk to me about the most, so I'm lucky that I love that film and that role so much," said Blunt, who stopped in Philadelphia last week.

"I know people who are famous for one thing, and you can tell they resent it because they sort of roll their eyes whenever it's brought up. But I'll always be thrilled to have been associated with that movie, because I love it so much."

Even though it ended forever her comfortable anonymity as a working, not-yet-famous actor.

"I'll never forget when the movie came out, and the next day I went to get a coffee, and a woman approached me. I'd never been recognized before, and this was THE NEXT DAY. I remember thinking, God, that's weird. Nice, but weird."

Hollywood insiders noticed, too.

"The thing about 'The Devil Wears Prada,' is that everybody loved it. People in the business loved it. And it's very hard these days to be in a movie that everybody loves. Everyone is so hypercritical about everything. And they have a right to be, because everything's been done 100 times, and everyone is so bored. The want to see something new and different."

You can't get much more different from "Salmon Fishing in Yemen," as the title implies.

Blunt plays a good-natured marketing expert paired with a prickly scientist who's been assigned to introduce English salmon to a river in Yemen.

It's an opposites-attract romance, but with a degree of restraint and politeness that feels almost radical in the era of the R-rated, gross-out comedy.

"I think it's actually quite brave for a film to use this kind of amusing formality . . . to have this kind of gentle nature, because there's this preconception that people aren't going to find that interesting anymore. But I think audiences are crying out for authentic human experience in a movie, no matter how it's presented."

That said, Blunt dips her dainty toe in the R-rated pool next month.

"People want the [R-rated] show these days. And there's nothing wrong with that, either, so long as it's done right. The movie that I have coming out at the end of April, 'The Five Year Engagement,' is MUCH bawdier than this," said Blunt, who co-stars with Segal in a movie produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Nicholas Stoller ("Get Him to the Greek" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall").

Later this year she stars in "Looper" with Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis, and has finished a comedy with Colin Firth.

Her favorite on-set experience, though, is "Salmon Fishing," with on-location shooting in Morocco, actor-friendly director Lasse Hallstrom, and agreeable co-star McGregor, who definitely needed a break after "Haywire," opposite MMA star Gina Carano.

"Yes, he really got his ass handed to him in that one," Blunt said. "I did not beat the crap out of him."