British actress Emily Blunt came to the rescue of her friend Meryl Streep after the veteran star suffered a frightening fall on the set of their new film Into The Woods.

The Devil Wears Prada co-stars reteamed for the big screen adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, in which Streep plays a witch who places a curse on a childless baker and his wife, played by James Corden and Blunt.

During an interview with the cast on Yahoo!, Corden recalls a near-death incident involving the trio just a couple days after production kicked off.

He says, "It's day two of rehearsal, and we're in this mock-up bakery. Meryl's leaping and jumping up on things and coming up and getting into your face. And she leaps onto the table... catches her shoe in the dress, and starts to fall back headfirst towards this stone floor.

"And time slowed down and I thought, 'I'm about to watch Meryl Streep die.' I wish I could say I didn't consider my own career in this and I thought, 'This film's gonna go down - f**k!' (Director) Rob Marshall freezes and thinks, 'Oh my God, Meryl Streep's gonna die.'"

Corden admitted neither him nor Marshall came to the rescue of the Oscar winner - it was Blunt, who was pregnant with her first child while filming the movie.

He continued, "The person who stepped in and saved her life that day - was not the two men in the room - it was the pregnant woman. She leaped forward, catches Meryl Streep and we were all just gasped. I never forgot it really. Every day I kept thinking, 'Is she really gonna keep going for it at this level?' And she really did."