Emily Jessup

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Emily Jessup is a fictional character who appears in the book and film adaptation of "Altered States". She is played by Blair Brown.

Emily is first introduced as a 24 year old Ph.D candidate and aspiring Anthropology Professor who meets the protagonist Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) at a party. Emily is a brilliant, beautiful red head but at the same time she is lonely and feels unloved, and quickly latches onto Eddie, who proves to be a very "fascinating bastard". After enjoying a night of passionate lovemaking, Eddie confesses a long buried secret of his to Emily, but it does not derail her interest in him.

Emily marries Eddie and they have two daughters, but Eddie's unrelenting fascination with altered states of the mind drives him to divorce her so he can pursue his research on the subject, breaking her heart. They remain in close contact though as Eddie relays many of his findings and discoveries to Emily, who fears that he is becoming unhinged by his obsession with alternate forms of consciousness.

After picking him up from jail, she attends one of his sleep deprivation tank experiments with his colleagues, where her insecurity and fear over the matter become apparent, and watches in horror when Eddie begins to mutate into an alternate form of life, opening up a hole in the dimensional vortex.

Eddie survives and is taken back to Emily's home, where she goes into shock and breaks down into tears over his recklessness and inability to understand or accept the human state as it is. By this point she also believes that Eddie never truly loved her or ever cared about her at all, contrary to what his colleague tells her.

A rehabilitated Eddie watches over Emily as she sleeps naked - a classic symbol of vulnerability - in a chair and covers her with a blanket. The next morning when she wakes up, Eddie confesses to her that she is the most important thing in his life along with their children, and that she was the one thing that kept him from being completely consumed by the "cold, hideous nothing" that is consuming him from within. Emily asks him to come back to her, but he says it may be too late - and then begins to mutate again. Dropping her blanket, a completely naked Emily rushes to him, but when she touches him the mutation infects her and begins to mutate her into an alternate form of life. Eddie manages to reject the mutation and saves Emily, restoring her to human form.