Cate Blanchett
'Brad Pitt is too gorgeous'
by Robin Walker
Since Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for depicting Katherine Hepburn two
years ago, you'd think the Australian star would be relaxing a little.
Instead she's busier than ever - and immersing herself in dark roles.
 First she played a drug addict in the Australian-made Little Fish. Then
she was cornered as an adulteress in the British-produced Notes On A
Scandal. Now in Alejandro Inarritu's high-profile international
potboiler Babel she plays a tourist randomly shot in Morocco.
These will be followed by the wartime drama The Good German and her
second turn as Elizabeth I in the historical drama The Golden Age.
"It has been an amazing year," Cate concedes. "I knew Patrick Marber was
writing the screenplay for Notes On A Scandal and I read the book so
that very quickly evolved."
Her hectic work schedule initially caused problems for casting Steven
Soderbergh's The Good German. "It didn't look like it could fit with my
commitments, then the two camps worked it out. But it was a tight fit
for me."
The luminous 37-year-old considers herself lucky to be teamed with Brad
Pitt and Mexican auteur Inarritu (21 Grams) in Babel. The film's three
stories, set in Morocco, Los Angeles/Mexico and Tokyo, are interlinked
by a hunting rifle.
"They came to me, lucky girl that I am," Cate says. "I really didn't
want to work but Alejandro's such a flatterer that I sucked it up and
went to Morocco. I'm so proud to be part of that film. I'm really
pleased he pushed me to do it."
 Cate and Brad play an estranged couple who leave their children behind
for a relationship-mending holiday, only to be thrown into a
life-and-death situation when a Moroccan peasant randomly shoots at
their tourist bus. While this is happening their two children in Los
Angeles are being abandoned in the desert by their Mexican nanny.
This is a harrowing film any parent will understand, the mother-of-two
says. "It's all about connections between parents and children. It felt
very personal for me as a parent. When you see a child in danger it
engages you. It's like pulling the roots of my system out - it's very
distressing."
The fair-skinned Cate is the face of skincare range SK-II and she lets
out a secret about the handsome Brad: he had to have prosthetic eye bags
to look harrowed in Babel. "No, they're not his own eye bags, he's too
gorgeous," she says.
Interestingly, Cate and Brad team up again in the forthcoming The
Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. There's a lot of ageing involved.
"It's a star-crossed lovers' story. I play a woman Brad Pitt meets when
he's about 10, so he's really about 85 and I'm six. There's this point
in their lives when they can be together."
 Seemingly everywhere on our cinema screens, Cate admits she initially
resisted playing Elizabeth I again after 1998's Elizabeth, and had to be
talked around by director Shekhar Kapur.
"I did say no because I'd done it and I thought, I don't need to do that
again. But then he and Geoffrey (Rush) and I had a great conversation. I
saw it was about being part of the ageing process and taking her to a
different level."
"Shekhar wanted to make a film about immortality and also about holy
war, which I thought was very timely," she explains. "He said, Clive
Owen is going to do it and Geoffrey (Rush) is going to do it again and
so I just couldn't refuse."
With so many stunning roles coming out in quick succession, you'd think
that Cate has been doing films back to back. But that's not the case,
the dedicated mum says. Her workload on Babel only took three weeks:"The secret of doing lots of films is to learn to move in and out of
character", she says.
"The more you do as an actor the more facility you have to switch on and
off. 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, between scenes the lead actor would be
reading or sleeping and I'd think, how can you do that?"
 Cate and writer/producer husband Andrew Upton have two young sons,
Dashiell and Roman. They have returned to live in Sydney and have thrown
themselves into stagework as co-artistic directors with the Sydney
Theatre Company.
Home is an eco-friendly solar-powered house at Hunter's Hill, in the
city's inner north. Cate enjoys being away from the celebrity spotlight
of London and Los Angeles.
"I'm not particularly public," she confesses. "I absolutely accept that
there's a public side to my job. We get up in front of people so we're
bound to be scrutinised. If you pretend that's not the case then you're
kidding yourself. But if you don't want to be seen, there are certain
places you don't go."
While she is wary of being a celebrity spokesperson for environmental
issues, Cate feels very strongly about pollution and the energy crisis.
For a start, Australia is running out of water - that's why she attended
a Walk Against Warming protest in Sydney last year.
"It's a sad and sorry day when the environment has to become groovy
before people pay attention to it," she says.
With at least three of her current roles being talked of as Oscar
possibilities, Cate is being hailed as a genuine movie queen. But the
unassuming Australian actress would rather her profile was a little
lower.
"If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, I would be on the brink my
entire life. That great sense of expectation and excitement without the
disappointment. That would be the perfect state."
nuts4facts
Real Name: |
Catherine Elise Blanchett |
|
Birthdate: |
May 14, 1969 |
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Significent
Other: |
Andrew Upton (husband since 1997) |
| |
Career High: |
Winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Aviator in
2005 |
| |
Career Low: |
Had to pull out of Mike Nichols' Closer in 2004 because of
pregnancy |
| |
Famous For : |
Her pale, indefinable beauty |
| |
Words of Wisdom: |
"If you know you are going to fail, then fail
gloriously." |
|
