British actress Emily Blunt was a virtual unknown on the big screen in 2006 when she managed to steal every scene in “The Devil Wears Prada” from veteran thespians Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci. Her over-the-top (and Golden Globe-nominated) performance as Streep’s high-strung assistant put her in the international spotlight, steering her career away from prior British period TV pieces and independent films and towards memorable character roles in wide-releases like “The Jane Austen Book Club” (2007) and the Steve Carell comedy “Dan in Real Life” (2007).

Born on Feb. 23, 1983 in London, England, Emily Blunt was one of four children to a barrister father and teacher mother who had, herself, enjoyed an early acting career on stage and television before having a family. While growing up, Blunt excelled at singing, playing cello, and horseback riding but had not considered following in her mother’s acting footsteps, due to the fact that she struggled with a stutter. Blunt eventually overcame the hurdle but her speech therapy, which included learning to adopt different accents and voices, was her introduction to character interpretation.

She went on to study acting in London during high school, and with only six months of training behind her, was promptly cast alongside some of the most respected actors in the business, making her stage debut opposite Dame Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall’s production of “The Royal Family” in 2001. The Evening Standard even named her “Best Newcomer.” She followed this up by playing Juliet in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” at the Chichester Festival in 2002.

The lithe, blue-eyed beauty with the feisty energy made her foray into television with the 2003 UK television series “Boudica,” playing warrior queen Alex Kingston’s daughter. The series was broadcast on PBS in the United States. More television roles in period dramas followed, including Catherine Howard — fifth wife of Henry VIII — opposite Ray Winstone in “Henry VIII” (2003, Granada Television), and a spoiled socialite who meets an unpleasant fate in the Agatha Christie thriller, “Death on the Nile” (A&E, 2004).

Blunt made a big impression shortly thereafter in the independent feature “My Summer of Love” (2004), in which she played a manipulative young woman who becomes involved with a former prison inmate. The BAFTA-winning film shone the spotlight brightly onto Blunt, leading to the inevitable shift toward more substantial roles in larger productions. She played a vestal virgin with psychic abilities in the overripe ABC historical miniseries “Rome” (2005), and gained more positive reviews when she starred opposite Susan Sarandon and Sam Neill in the Australian film, “Irresistible” (2005), in which she played a young woman whom Sarandon believes is attempting to seduce her husband. Blunt returned to BBC TV in 2005 and earned a Golden Globe win for her meaty role as a teen with a troubled parental relationship in “Gideon’s Daughter;” again holding her own in the company of respected veteran players Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson.

“The Devil Wears Prada” marked Blunt’s Hollywood debut, and her turn as Emily, who alternately fears and worships Meryl Streep’s steely boss while making life miserable for her new co-worker (Anne Hathaway), garnered much positive press for the film – some critics even singling her out as the best character in the movie. Blunt had been working steadily for several years prior to her Devilish breakout, but now the energetic young actress enjoyed the luxury of having a much larger, broader range of offers to pick from.

Her almost cartoonish role in “Prada” notwithstanding, she displayed a preference for character roles that were “real” to the extreme, like the socially awkward teacher Prudie in “The Jane Austen Book Club” (2007). Blunt maintained her dead-on American accent throughout the rest of 2007, and the relative newcomer was again thrown in the ring with great actors such as John Malkovich in “The Great Buck Howard” and Tom Hanks in “Charlie Wilson’s War.” In the former, she played a magician’s publicist; in the latter, gave a married man a tongue bath. Blunt’s real life romantic counterpart was popular jazz vocalist Michael Buble. To the delight of international tabloids, the two shared a home in Vancouver, British Columbia and Blunt was a guest vocalist on Buble’s 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible. Blunt filmed “Sunshine Cleaning,” a comedy about a crime scene clean-up company co-starring Amy Adams and Alan Arkin which was slated for release in 2008.