Emily Blunt

When relative neophyte Blunt was nominated for two 2007 Golden Globes for a pair of antithetical performances — her searing work as a daughter at odds with her adulterous father in the TV-movie Gideon's Daughter and her delightfully over-the-top turn as a fashionista in the featureThe Devil Wears Prada — she was just fulfilling her initial promise as one of her generation's most versatile players. Still a teen when she made her London stage debut in 2001's The Royal Family (opposite Dame Judi Dench and directed by Sir Peter Hall), the British actress earned the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Newcomer. Making an easy transition from stage to British television, she continued to impress in historical roles, first as an ancient warrior in Boudica and next as a doomed young wife in the drama Henry VIII. The silver screen summoned her, and she found success with a breakthrough performance as a manipulative privileged teenager in the British independent film My Summer of Love (2005). Already an established starlet in her homeland, Blunt broke into Hollywood films with her scene-stealing turn in The Devil Wears Prada. In 2007, her career momentum stayed steady with supporting roles in Dan in Real Life, Charlie Wilson's War, and The Jane Austen Book Club, and she experienced another impressive triumph with her moving depiction of a queen-in-progress in The Young Victoria (2009). More award nominations found her, including a Golden Globe nod for Best Actress. Next, she put aside her royal costumes to play a reluctant crime-scene cleaner in the independent feature Sunshine Cleaning (2009) and then a corseted damsel in the horror flick The Wolfman (2010). Meanwhile, she found off-screen romance with actor John Krasinski and continued to split her time between England and the U.S. ~ Rovi