Were you as surprised as we were when sweet, funny Emily Blunt took on the job as spokeswoman for YSL's controversial Opium fragrance?
Turns out Blunt even surprised herself. The British actress, who will appear on the big screen with Jason Segel in "Five-Year Engagement," spoke to the Telegraph about her first beauty campaign:
"I don't know [why I was chosen]. I've no idea," she says, wheezing with laughter. "There was no one else? They made a mistake, a terrible mistake."
Self-effacing humility aside, Blunt says she took on the job in part because of the controversy surrounding it. YSL's Opium came under fire in 2000 for a billboard featuring a naked Sophie Dahl, which invited 730 complaints to Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and a subsequent ban.
Then this past February, another Opium ad got in trouble for featuring a woman dancing in a style that, ostensibly, simulated drug use. Deemed "irresponsible and unacceptable for broadcast" by Britain's ASA, the ad was banned.
"There's such an aura of scandal around this perfume that I was quite attached to the idea of doing it from the word go," Blunt told the Telegraph. "I'd been asked to do a couple of things but none were as classy as this. And I got to work with a leopard. "
And it was because of the leopard that Blunt appears in the ad wearing a classic le smoking (tuxedo) instead of a dress. "The leopard trainer says, 'If you have flowing fabric around the leopard the leopard will go crazy,' " Blunt told the Telegraph, "So I said yes to the tux. "
Good call. Watch Blunt's glamorous star turn for YSL below.
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