Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchettis an Australian actress and theatre director. She has received international acclaim and many accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and three British Academy Awards. Blanchett came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in Shekhar Kapur's 1998 film Elizabeth, for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award, and earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress nomination. Her...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth14 May 1969
CityMelbourne, Australia
CountryAustralia
There's plenty of girlfriend roles out there. They've come my way, and many people have turned them down, and I think, "Oh maybe I could do something with this." It's interesting when you get those roles, which seem like nothing on the page, and you kind of subvert them. It's hard to say no.
It's part of my job. You can't play Veronica Guerin sounding like this. It just wouldn't wash. But what I find fascinating about doing an accent - unless it's a farce - is that it's not slapped on.
The more you do it, the more you learn to concentrate, as a child does, incredibly intensively and then you sort of have to relax. I remember the first film I did, the lead actor would in between scenes be reading a newspaper or sleeping and I'd think, 'How can you do that?'
I'm a horrible person. And it's just coming out in my work.
I like to put perfume on my pulse points, but I also love the way you can sense it - there is an atmosphere that comes from releasing a scent in to the world - it's a primal thing. I spray around me, not just on me, and it lingers in the room after I leave.
That's definitely true! It was before my father died, so I can't attribute it to an obsession with death. When I was seven, I loved those old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone. The Scarlet Claw was one of my faves. And I loved all the Halloween's and that film about the haunted house... Burnt Offerings, with Oliver Reed. Every birthday party was a slumber party and we'd watch horror films.
Sometimes I think it's so good not to win those things. And, anyway, who wants to peak when they're 28?
If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles - you're lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers; you're brother and sister. That's what intimacy is, if you're with your soulmate.
I don't understand a way to work other than bold-facedly running towards failure.
A film is not a documentary. And what's wonderful about film is that it's a real provocation for people. I never, ever see film as being an absolute version of the truth.
I think that's what I love about my life. There's no maniacal master plan. It's just unfolding before me.
Don't you find that work, if you love it, is actually really invigorating?
When something is a vocation, you don't really make a decision about it.
One of my favorite moments is onstage, when you see a dancer leap, and you think they're flying, and then they fall. It's that moment of suspension that you look for, and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't.