When the Barbenheimer As the event vaulted two summer films to blockbuster glory, it was clear how the films differed when it came to the trajectories of their female characters. Stereotypical Barbie, played by Margot Robbie in Greta Gerwig‘s candy-bright confection, trading the plasticine perfection of its Malibu dreamhouse for a mixed bag of real-world freedoms. In the case of Kitty Oppenheimer – the wife of the so-called American Prometheus, brought to boiling life by this Emily Blunt in Christopher Nolan‘s biopic – it is still, metaphorically, confined to the box. A biologist who turns to the roles of wife and mother, she remains unfulfilled, “struggling against the constraints of femininity at the time,” Blunt says of her in a video. Oppenheimer The performance, which garnered a raft of best-supporting-actress nominations. Kitty is a “really brilliant brain who went to waste on the ironing board, and she suffered for it.”
If Kitty has the force of an undetonated weapon, what Blunt unleashed at Sunday’s Critics’ Choice Awards 2024 was pure bombshell—a red glitter that glowed like fire under the lights. “We were going for a modern twist on Old Hollywood,” the stylist Jessica Pester says by phone, shortly after Blunt decamped for the carpet. (She joins him Oppenheimer cast members on stage to accept the award for Best Performance Costume.) “When I saw that dress, I knew I wanted it for Emily. I said, ‘Please put it on hold—I don’t know why!’” Such coup de love happened last July when a one-shoulder Giorgio Armani Prive look appeared on the runway. “The movie is set in the ’40s and ’50s, and that’s what I love about this silhouette,” says Pester. “More importantly,” she adds, “it has femininity, but it’s a very strong dress.”
Much of that magnetism—glamour at its most basic—is due to Blunt’s personality, funny and cerebral and warm. Another part is his Bedrock team. “We’re all compatible with each other,” says Pester, speaking of the others in the creative trio. Jennifer Streicher on makeup, Lenny Reeves We hair. Streicher gets on the phone, tracing their origin story back to the 2007 awards season The Devil Wears Prada. “I actually worked with her husband, John (Krasinski), and they had just started dating,” the makeup artist recalls. “I was like, ‘Yeah, if you ever need someone, let me know.'” The following week, Blunt called about the SAG Awards. . “John always says she stole me from him,” Streicher says with a laugh.
