While Emily Blunt passed her U.S. Citizenship exam with flying colors, the actress endured a different kind of test this week — on the consequences of joking about patriotism in America.
The British star issued an apology Thursday, after her recent quip that the Aug. 6 Republican presidential debate made her regret becoming an American citizen. While Blunt says her comment was an “offhand joke,” some conservatives went wild over the remarks. But crisis PR manager Howard Bragman believes the controversy was blown out of proportion.
“She’ll get through this. What she said was taken out of context,” Bragman, chairman and founder of Fifteen Minutes Public Relations, told TheWrap. “As someone who was born in this country, looking at the Republican debate, it’s not easy to say ‘Oh, I’m so fu-king proud to be an American.’”
Blunt’s acting career is currently red hot. Her critically-acclaimed film “Sicario,” from director Denis Villeneuve just opened, and she has several other movies in production including the 2016 action-adventure, “The Huntsman.”
Bragman doesn’t expect citizenship-gate to slow the movie offers coming Blunt’s way. “The question seems to be, ‘Is this a speed bump or a sinkhole?’ And it’s a speed bump,” he explained.
The controversy started when the actress, who is married to American star John Krasinski, said, “I became an American citizen recently, and that night, we watched the Republican debate and I thought, ‘This was a terrible mistake. What have I done?’”
The remark prompted the hosts of the Fox News morning program “Fox & Friends” to call for her deportation, and complain that the actress was snatching up roles meant for American women.
Author and NPR television critic Eric Deggans thinks Fox News’ air time would have been better spent covering world affairs instead of Emily Blunt.
“This is a tempest in a teapot,” Deggans told TheWrap. “I’m even surprised that Fox News is spending much time on it.”
Still, Deggans cautioned that Blunt may want to think twice about what she says in her next round of press interviews.
“One of the hallmarks of American society is that you can express your opinion,” he said. “But I was surprised that she made a joke like that in public.”
As far as Fox’s insistence that the actress is taking roles from Americans, Deggans disagrees. “The American film and TV industry is international, anyone who doesn’t know that doesn’t know Hollywood.”
Still, it makes sense that Blunt quickly issued an apology to quiet the controversy. Her new film “Sicario” has both its North American box office and an awards campaign on the line, sparking speculation that Blunt’s joke might distract from otherwise positive buzz for the film and her performance. The thriller, which co-stars Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, has been well received by reviewers, including TheWrap’s Alonso Duralde, who gave it a nod of approval, saying “it mixes arthouse and grindhouse into a most satisfying cocktail.”
From a PR standpoint, Bragman believes Blunt managed the fallout with flying colors.
“For a situation that was prickly and a little embarrassing, she handled herself well. Also, for a movie like this, her job isn’t to make sure it opens big. It’s her job to act well and do her part,” Bragman said. “Conservatives don’t like Hollywood to begin with — they consume it as a product, and not much else otherwise.”