Emily Blunt Gets Over Stage Fright by Performing with Backstreet Boys Backup Singers on 'Ellen'

The “Mary Poppins Returns” star talks about the surreal moment when she got the call for the role, and the Boys play a revealing game of “Never Have I Ever.”

Sometimes mashups just work way better than they have any right to, and that’s what "Ellen" put together when guest Emily Blunt was joined onstage by Backstreet Boys.

It all came together during a seemingly impromptu musical moment after Ellen DeGeneres urged her to sing once again for her audience. The "Mary Poppins Returns" star had just been talking about the anxiety she still gets when thinking about singing in front of an audience.

But who can still be nervous when they have five world-class backing singers performing with them?

Blunt seemed genuinely shocked to see the venerable boy band emerge from backstage and join her. But rather than break into a classic ditty from "Mary Poppins," which would have been so surreal it would have been truly magical, they instead went with a classic from the BSB catalog.

It was a great sextet, though, with Blunt growing more confident all the way to the end of the song when all five Boys dropped and let her finish alone.

"You left me alone," she shouted at them. "You weren’t supposed to do that?"

Earlier in her interview segment, Blunt recalled the phone call from "Poppins" director Rob Marshall, a longtime friend. Only this phone call felt so different, " I was like, he’s going to ask me to marry him," Blunt said. "This is where I get married to Rob Marshall."

She also recalled when she told a friend about her casting in the role — Marshall said no one else was even considered — and was told in return that she had "balls of steel." No pressure, you know.

This is only one of the most iconic movie performances and roles of all time. Who wouldn’t want to step into Julie Andrews’ shoes and try to recreate that magic?

Okay, actually most of us would probably be absolutely terrified, but Blunt has all the charm and grace and charisma of Andrews already, and she even resembles her just enough that the magic of movies — and the 54 years since the original came out — practically erase any differences.

If only we all could look so good after more than half a century.

Meanwhile, Backstreet Boys is celebrating a quarter-century and they’re looking pretty damned fine, as well. Who would have expected a boy band to have such longevity in the United States, and yet not only are they still touring and selling out major venues, they’ve got two hits on the current charts.

The Boys performed one of those hits, "Don’t Go Breaking My Heart," which you can watch at the end of this post. But before that they played one of Ellen’s favorite games, and revealed a bit about themselves in the process.

Why not expose all of their deepest, darkest secrets on national television? It turns out the guys weren’t shy at all about revealing which of them joined the mile high club, signed a fan’s breast, hooked up with a groupie, forgot the name of said hookup, forgot a lyric on stage and even sent a dirty text to the wrong person,

Wildly enough, only one of those questions elicited a unanimous response from all five members of the group. Check out all their answers in the video above and then watch them sing and dance like its 25 years ago below:

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