Actress Emily Blunt has expressed a desire to create a film focusing on stuttering, aiming to destigmatise the condition. Speaking to the BBC, the Oppenheimer star, who struggled with stuttering as a child, highlighted the emotional trauma of living with speech difficulties.
Blunt credited a teacher who encouraged her to perform in school plays for helping her overcome her stutter. She described the shame associated with stuttering, noting that it is often misunderstood as a psychological issue rather than a neurological one.
'There's so much shame about it because there's not enough information it's neurological,' Blunt told BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour. 'People really deem it psychological. So you're sort of deemed off-putting or unconvincing.'
The Mary Poppins Returns star acknowledged that she still adapts her speech to avoid difficult words. 'I'll always be one [a stutterer],' she said. 'Certain environments will still create a struggle for me.'
According to the US-based Stuttering Foundation, over 80 million people worldwide stutter. The NHS notes that stuttering is common in childhood and can persist into adulthood, with no definitive cause.
