Emily Blunt has opened up about her emotional response to learning the details of Steven Spielberg's new sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, revealing she was left in tears after reading the script.
The actress stars in Spielberg's latest film, which arrives in cinemas on June 12, 2026, and centres on a whistleblower attempting to expose a decades-long conspiracy to hide evidence of extraterrestrial life.
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Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Blunt recalled how secretive the project was during its early stages.
"It was so secretive that when my agent called me and said 'Steven Spielberg wants to meet you,' they didn't even know what it was about. My agent didn't know what it was about. Nothing was passed over."
She continued: "So I went to meet him, and on the coffee table was a book called 'Close Encounters' and I was like, 'Oh my God!' And so he pitched me a little bit and said: 'I don't want to tell you any more, I want you to take it home and read it. And then you call me.'"
Blunt said the screenplay had a profound effect on her.
"I called him and I cried, because it was so breathtaking."
She added: "These massive themes, these huge existential questions we're left asking ourselves about humanity's place in the universe, and yet he's told us this crazy life or death chase thriller. I don't know how he balances it, he's really amazing."
The film has already generated significant buzz, with Spielberg describing it as a thematic "bookend" to his 1977 classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Steven Spielberg. Denis Makarenko, Shutterstock
The legendary director has also made headlines after revealing that he believes extraterrestrials have visited Earth and may still be here.
Speaking to CBS News while promoting the film, Spielberg said: "Based on the circumstantial evidence of everything that I've gathered throughout my whole life, everybody I've listened to and every documentary I've ever watched and all the testimonies in Congress that I've heard, I absolutely think that they have been here, and they are here."
He added: "And who knows, maybe they've always been here."
The Oscar-winning filmmaker has spent much of his career exploring the possibility of alien life through films including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, War of the Worlds and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Explaining the premise of Disclosure Day, Spielberg said: "'Disclosure Day' is about how, if somebody had the power and if somebody had possession of the entire archive of visual evidence of what's been happening for the last 80 years, what would happen if they decided to do a data dump across the entire world all at once?"
Eve Hewson. Lev Radin, Shutterstock
The film boasts a star-studded cast including Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo and Ireland's own Eve Hewson.
Speaking previously about the screenplay, Domingo said: "I finished reading the script, and I bawled. I thought it was one of the most beautiful scripts about our humanity."
He continued: "I think it was just the most beautiful film about our humanity, and I literally cried because Steven Spielberg believes in the possibility of the human beings we could be."
Meanwhile, Blunt has teased that the film "definitely answers some of the questions posed in Close Encounters."
Disclosure Day is released in cinemas on June 12, 2026.
