As a child, Emily Blunt had a stutter (结巴) that made it difficult for her to even say her own name. "I started noticing it at 6 or 7," the London-born actress says. "My grandfather, my uncle and my cousin all stutter. It feels like you've got this pretender living in your body." After a teacher noticed her stutter disappeared whenever she would start to play energetically, he suggested she try performing for the school play. She found that the more she lost herself in characters, the less uncomfortably nervous she felt and the less she would stutter.
Now the star aims to help kids going through the same thing by working with the American Institute for Stuttering. "They understand that how these kids relate to their stutter is usually the issue," says Blunt. "You've got to fall in love with the fact that you've got a stutter to accept it. But it's not all of you. Everyone's got something－and this is just your thing."
Blunt's personal experience has inspired her to help girls everywhere, regardless of the trouble they may face. The A Quiet Place Part II and Jungle Cruise star also supports Malala Fund, created by Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai to break down the barriers preventing more than 130 million girls worldwide from receiving an education. "She's the most moving, impressive person I've ever met,” Blunt says. "What she says is true: When women are given more power in communities, those communities develop quickly and successfully. I want to support Malala until the day I die."
Giving back is a quality Blunt and husband John Krasinski also hope to pass on to their daughters Hazel, 6, and Violet, 3. "Empathy is highly thought of in our house," Blunt says. "We tell them all the time, 'Be brave, be kind.'"
