Oppenheimer star Emily Blunt has apologised to her co-star Cillian Murphy for hurting him while filming the Oscar-nominated biopic.
During an interview with The Sun, the actress detailed how she had been filming a particularly tense scene in which she had been asked by director Christopher Nolan to repeatedly slap her co-star over and over.
Blunt revealed that she had been hesitant about how hard to hit her co-star in the now-deleted scene, despite both Nolan and Murphy encouraging her.
“Sorry about your cheekbone Cillian,” she said of the scene.
The unaired slap was reportedly part of a particularly tense scene in the film, in which Blunt’s character tells Murphy’s Oppenheimer: “You don’t get to commit sin and then ask all of us to feel sorry for you when there are consequences.”
Explaining the moment on set, Blunt continued: “Poor Cillian. Chris went, ‘Hit him’. And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ And Cillian was like, ‘Do it, do it.’ Chris was like, ‘He’ll be fine . . . do it.’
“I slapped him then I grabbed him, by the neck really, by the collar.”
The actress added: “I just saw over the course of, like, ten takes that very famous cheekbone became even more prominent — and it’s not even in the movie.”
Both Murphy and Blunt have been nominated for their respective roles as nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty at both the Oscars and the BAFTAs, following multiple wins for the film at the Golden Globes.
Oppenheimer has picked up 13 nominations at both major awards ceremonies, which includes nods to Blunt and Murphy for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ and ‘Best Actor’. Murphy has already received an award for the role at last month’s Golden Globes.
Nolan has also received nominations for ‘Best Director’ at both the Oscars and the BAFTAs, while the film is also contending in the ‘Best Picture’ categories.
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