British actress Emily Blunt is forever grateful to a teacher at her former school - for inspiring her to take to the stage and cure her childhood stutter.

The Devil Wears Prada star suffered a bad stammer as a schoolgirl, but finally overcame her speech impediment when a teacher urged her to take up acting.

She says, "I did have a bad stuttering problem as a child. I'd try to push the words out, but it was so frustrating. My parents took me to speech coaches and relaxation coaches.

"It didn't work. Then one of my teachers at school had a brilliant idea and said, 'Why don't you speak in an accent in our school play?' I distanced myself from me through this character, and it was so freeing that my stuttering stopped when I was onstage. It really was a miracle."