Cate Blanchett: A Life in Pictures

Babel a very complex film and quite strange I guess to to see as a script I think you've said you know it's an intriguing story but you know what was the challenge until I guess it was explained well I wanted to work with Alejandro and we'd tried on previous occasions and it hadn't quite worked out for one reason or another and he's a very seductive man I didn't particularly want to work and I'd read the script and you know it's an astonishing script and it's one of those scripts a little bit like I'm Todd Haynes this film about Bob Dylan in yes in that you you know that it wouldn't make sense to any other director that it's conceived for this particular person to direct I had very little dialogue and in the end that was the challenge I had asked participant notes on a scandal where it was trying to shut the characters up and I for one loved and not talking on film so it was in a strange way it was a bit of a dream job lie on the ground and don't say very much are you aware the whole picture when you actually are involved or are you aware of your bit a few of us had the full script but not all the crew members did so it was a little bit like working on a feature ed and you knew that the part that you were working on would make its full most complete sense when juxtaposed and into woven with the other stories I mean I think that's waves he's his genius lies is that he he it's not only what was going on in the scene it's it's how it effects and unfolds into the other narratives what does it kind of extraordinary is that the truth really been only on acting on big screens for ten years and you've made over 25 films which by any standards is is hardly rarity value as a heck a lot of movies in a very short period cat illogical that's a lot of that's a lot of me that soon my maths that's two and a half a year or something is this so it's a lot of movies and in a short period of time but game back - beginnings becomes a drama school and then a kind of very interesting period of theatre there with a lot of other actors who've since gone on like YouTube did a lot of movies and so on but I just want to be also you're quite young when that sort of new wave of Australian filmmaking was happening some from its 70s onwards do - we're in first flash and Pepsi and so I mean seminar at the age of settlement where people of your a kind of age aware of new Australian so my was it just a so broad that saw those films I mean this is still Alvin purple and Barry McKenzie well I think the first Australian film that I saw I mean I thought that stayed with me in a haunting way was Hannah Picnic at Hanging Rock but I mostly spent my time in the theater that was what my parents didn't know films I watched were horror movies and someone deep and Freudian analysis the other week told me that was probably because I was trying to explicate you know or deal with my the death of my father which I thought was quite interesting but so I watched I wanted to be Basil Rathbone and I watch the live Sherlock Holmes films and the Scarlet claw that's where I was you did some television of course so as getting used to cameras and so on but you where she's sort of mid to late twenties when I think Paradise Road was the first move okay can say old sorry to say offensive but I mean so many people start you know maybe start making movies from the age of eighteen nineteen and so on and you were sort of reasoning mature by that I can't believe there weren't sort of film offers before then specials you'd have a lot of success on this I majored in Australia was saying look she sat me down one day and I think I just finished playing failure and was in a tour and she stood people really got to make a film he said before it's too late and I said what what has to cast me and the thing that was great for me actually but there was a casting director cause called Liz Malina and she used to call me in to be a reader and I would go in like two or three times a week and read opposite actors so even though I wasn't necessarily auditioning I was working the theater I wasn't listed or auditioning a lot myself I was watching how actors sort of sabotage themselves as soon as they walk in the room and also how people make the decisions as soon as you've walk through the door so I began to take my auditions less personally actually and so I think I became better at auditioning and therefore maybe yeah maybe Paradise Road retreats or first film has actually roll a nice way I suspect to get involved in international filmmaking away one with a terrific cast game with Bruce Beresford who had sort of been in that first flush of the Australian New Wave and this was I suppose the second flash I don't know that's the right way but you were playing the Carrie because I actually met those old days when they came on the opening film here a lot of them are still around and stood alive the characters Susan McCarthy I think she was called yes it was about the nurses who this was kind of tanco without if you've seen paradise right yeah this is about imprisoned in Sumatra yeah yeah yes my character was it was sort of seen that the film was seen through my character's eyes and there were a lot of probably too many characters in in the film but it was a I mean a great Jennifer Ehle julianna margulies Frances McDormand Glenn Close they were Pauline Collins there was a fantastic group of women and you know I learned an enormous amount a lot of fighting for screen time was it all very gently no well not for my end I mean Bruce is hilarious um you know we've been talking about doing things since you know but you know he came up to me one day and said I don't know whether you're making your accent more more broad than it is but no one can understand you but I think I think I'm and one of the producers said it was absolutely fine but Bruce had I suppose being part of that first wave had a chip on his shoulder and been you know aware that when Mad Max went to the states that there was a moment there where they wanted to dub it because people were so unused to healing hearing an Australian accent so I mean I think a lot has changed that later on but I mean ospa Lucinda then I suppose was that the kind of the first big ones that we became most aware in a certain a leading role and I think actually a lovely film I don't know whether it has happy memories for you whose game was part of that new waiver later on with lovely Rafe no no it was great I mean it was extremely lucky that that Fox was coming into Australia and that Bruce Beresford really thought to have me it was a fox film and then they got me cheap and then they wanted me to do two other films so it was great so it meant I'd got to play it was easier for Jill Armstrong to then fight for an Australian to play an Australian role rather than get someone to say like Winona Ryder or someone took it to come in because you know I I was sort of suddenly attractive to Fox and then I made a film called Washington which sort of took me to America yes I mean timewise I think yes yes it did because I mean Shekar Kapur saw I think a show reel of footage from Oscar and Lucinda also say believe these things or not and that was what kind of determined him on you but he told me yeah but I mean did that come I mean that was kind of a big big move wasn't it Elizabeth role I mean that was absolutely in terms of working internationally and I think it's what made my nationality a bit dubious that somehow I arrived in America and people didn't know where you know whether I was English or Australian and I mean maybe that sort of having that sort of ambiguity about it opened up a you know a kind of a myriad of roles and therefore accents one of the things kind of interesting not only your casting was was in a sense the casting your psychic or Porter directed I mean that's that was an ambitious piece of cast in terms of working title it felt at the time like I mean it was an incredibly sort of risky little endeavor you know you had this director from from Bollywood who had finished making a feel about a film about pull and Debbie if the Bandit Queen and myself an Australian and that's enough but you know maybe not the first immediate choice to play Elizabeth the first and I think it was kind of a renegade sensibilities that maybe gave it at the time that sort of unusual edge but you also surrounded by British acting roles here on from you know the Lord Attenborough but but people really cast against type yeah I mean you don't think of Kathy Burke is playing a Tudor Queen and what I didn't sort of realize this it was my first sort of in to interface with I suppose class prejudice in terms of what actors play you know Krista Christopher Eccleston coming from the north then playing you know a Duke and I think it gave the casting a minute Eric Cantona I mean it was it was highly unusual and what was great about shaker is that he really often you know you're thinking it would be acting his socks off but you may as well be acting to the wall because then they're covering you know your ankles and what sheikha did is he really focused on the journey of Elizabeth and and shaped the film accordingly so it was a heat you know he had a great belief in me which I I think meant to say the first time probably yes it was yes now at the end of the film does have the usual stuff at the top she rained another forty years and what happened one or two the characters I mean you could not have visually imagined that was I mean there wasn't soonly at the time talk of doing the sequel was or perhaps there was no shake and I talked about doing a film about an Australian stunt woman who works in Bollywood films corneria waria but we didn't necessarily we weren't talking about of doing Elizabeth I didn't sort of seen that there was a sequel in there and that's what I liked about the film it was simply what it was and so when they began talking about it I said you know I mean let's I think that's what I was gonna say as I said to the first one I said why why do it I mean Glenda Jackson's done it so many so many people have done it played her what could I be adding to the you know the interpretation of her and it was shakers take on the film playing loose and fast with history you know he fought you know I mean in in a really constructive way you know I would bring out the to history books and say but this did not happen then shaker and the you know he's they go I don't know it doesn't matter and and that's what I love about him is ultimately he's making a film about something else entirely and using the character the framework of Elizabeth's life on which to hang these other things so the Golden Age which we've finished you know he was interested in immortality and I was very interested in the aging process having aged nine years but you know but we're and I'm glad that much time passed between the first one I'm making another one because I think now in the stage where perhaps I've got there's something different to say is it fair to say that it wasn't important part of the critic by winning from into and where the prizes are about important but presuming it didn't hurt oh look it was absolutely fantastic you know it did open a lot of doors for me but I suppose what the scripts that were sent to me then we were playing many unhappy monarchs throughout history and a lo lot of corsets and I suppose then I've realized okay I I've got a I've got a risk unemployment and not I've done that and so I when Mike Newell approached means it could I do an American accent I won well I've been in a couple of Mamet's and yeah I've done the on stage and it should be fine he said well I'm nodding I'm not American and you're not American so I have to trust you and then I played this Long Island housewife opposite John Cusack and that was great because they came out and quit secession and not planning it but I think it was juxtaposed ignite and then with the talented mr. Ripley they're actually quite small roles I mean there are some another small well but some actors will say my Korean and I need dare I say I'm a Michael Caine's he is it look I'm a I'm a Starman or Supporting Actor the fact that he's actually won two Oscars subsequently for playing supporting roles at some point but at this stage of the career you were quite a bit it seemed to be just to do with good material you have to get involved it there wasn't a suggestion that I will only go for the agent would say no she's anything to take big roles and well I mean Babel I mean very small portion of it and as I said it's it's the project it's the opportunity back in the shipping news I died on page nine and you know I was off at the other role but I wasn't particularly interested in it didn't see me I could offer anything new or different or wasn't really a stretch or and it was I said all can I have that one place that nasty woman who you get who dies which moves us neatly on on to a rather odd film I think the gift which is a kind of genre film I was gonna say I mean it's and I think it's um I don't know if the ice again red and you're gonna tell me I'm entirely wrong but you don't really believe in psychic stuff and so on and here you are playing a woman with the gift of a psychic gift when I read the script it was very much about a woman who was coming to terms with their own grief at her husband's death and I think in the final cut of the film a lot of that stuff went and a lot of the auger burger stuff stayed but I still kept that sense and so that was the curvy emotional connection for me but and I love it I mean what the privilege in love the fascination of being an actor is that you get to sort of inhabit and explore you know pockets of humanity that you sort of previously didn't know much about so I went to a lot of psychics then and then I met this one woman in Savannah where we were shooting and it was very odd she was actually a real estate agent and she given it all up she'd given it all up because she'd actually used to work for the FBI when they got to the end of their the process of trying to locate a dead body they'd call her and so she'd sit in a chair with a piece of the clothing of the missing person and and would would invariably lead them to the body if she wretched reading for me and she made some bizarre predictions she said you're gonna wear a dress that's gonna change your life and and I said okay and she said and you're gonna play a character woman who's very ahead of her time she's very tough but she's in danger but she's got all a short hair and all I could think of is guav engrave and groove and and and you can have two bodyguards and I said okay and that year I went to the Oscars and got an enormous amount of attention from the rock I wore and in two years later I found myself on the set of Veronica Guerin in in Ireland and the case of the people who had actually shot Veronica Guerin was coming up so my Irish agent very protectively had requested that I have bodyguards on set and and I'd turn around to get in the car with my short hair playing Veronica Guerin and there are these two bodyguards around me and yes it's a coincidence but I did suddenly went on go oh my god I was just wanting about the question of playing real people as opposed to sort of you know going to psychics and so on for when you're researching for just a character but Veronica I'm also very brave and with an interesting kind of life and I mean there's someone like that wasn't a question a lot of research there and I mean how accurate the character we see on screen was how do we think she really was it's very difficult for me to be objective about that and her parent nor mother at the end of the shoot did save some fantastic very rewarding things to me and the most useful thing to me actually she gave because she's in the public eye quite a lot for a journalist and I caught all of her television interviews and the most useful tool really for me was the radio interviews she because I don't look like Veronica Guerin and you have to get as close as you can but of course there's more licensed than when you play someone that Katharine Hepburn who is being received in the same medium by the same people who you know received her performances well there's more license with Veronica Guerin because she wasn't an actor on the screen and therefore her physicality is most well known but so the the the radio stuff was very useful because you're not distracted by the visuals and therefore you feel like the task is not insurmountable and there's something about I mean the word to inspire to breathe in it often reveals the pause our syntax often reveals our psychology and that really comes across on radio and so I got her hesitations the questions that you were asked revealed to me the doubts that she had about her own connection to what she was saying and so it was it was a bit of detective work really to then try and work out her relationship to her own intellect and to the job to sense when she was not telling the truth when she was telling the truth and so that was a really great starting point for me the missing of course was going right back into a kind of classic sort of legend and it we know having stuff films like The Searchers and so on and working with a kind of kind of Hollywood man in Ron Howard I mean all those elements but I guess does mean being in a Western I'm Anna sure every actual so as I've talked to him anyway so there's just great I've always wanted to do that although some actually hate horses and so only one you had to do a lot of horse stuff in that well my father being from Texas was a great lover of westerns and so you'd always hear the gunshots from the other room on us you know on a Saturday afternoon but that was never johner that interested me at all and I found this search as absolutely abhorrent that it was um but so it wasn't sort of a natural fit to me but I talked to Ron and I thought the fantastic ride that I've had as an actor is that these these projects have sort of taken me by surprise and and so you've delved into the genre kind of from a place of innocence - hopefully experience throughout the course of the shooting but and working with Tommy Lee Jones was a definitely a highlight and he actually at one point you know he's a man who doesn't mince his words and at one point he praised my equine management which was men I was doing okay but it was it was fantastic I mean it was one of those jobs where you know life was extraordinary and the work was extraordinary and it was so I mean we went to with filming in and around Los Alamos you know at the time that the Americans were going to war and I thought where you know where they produce all the nuclear weapons and Los Alamos but where the hell up I brought my family and I mean we've we've found some remarkable Americans and the the lands the landscape was incredible and I mean the work was fantastic and was it I mean you know the old every journey is nice ask the question about you know was it was it really tough or a five-star hotel just around the corner I mean did was it actually quite grueling on the trail there I mean do you actually rough it a bit um I've got a bit saddle-sore there was an awful lot of riding and I'm really proud that you know 99.9% of its me at one point the brewhouse Center had said a spider so I had to have a tarantula crawl on me and my deepest fear is spiders obviously I'm sure most people don't like having tarantulas crawl on something I have normal in that way but Ron lay down on the floor in the production office and said look it's me it's fine it's fine and he had the tarantula crawl over him and told me its name was Tara and it was nine years old and and then I said okay how can you say no when the directors got the tarantula on his crotch you think he just being a wuss if he don't do it so so I said okay and I let the tarantula crawl I mean as it was crawling up me I said it's been what he called bled you know when they bleed snakes and I get all the poison I said these bled at having you and they said oh no you can't actually do that so and then I they actually handled the poisoning but they're quite docile and if they get frightened they stop and then anyway so I had this tarantula crawl crawl on me and then he decided to cut the scene after I so it didn't take it to the screen but it did help me get over my fear of spiders coming to notes on a scandal Sheba Hart is it kind of curious is a curious character and it's quite sort of difficult to get hold of and she's a strange flighty sort of figure he's quite gossamer yeah really and Patrick Marber did with the screenplay was absolutely make the film into its own entity because the book no it's a scan of what was she thinking I really respond to the what was she thinking title and it's a dire eyes to counter the events all from Judi Dench's characters perspective and so the character Sheba Hart who I play really needed to be liberated from that in order to make her sort of give her her own voice but she's a teacher who has an affair with an underage boy a student which is something that I just I just think what why why ku how could someone do what would be attractive I mean forget that the moral trespass for a minute it's so what could one possibly find attractive in someone so young because once they open their mouths no matter how tight their abs are I'm lost and so it's that was tricky for me but I think once I began to realize how lost she was then it began to make sense for me and something that was really useful for me a description of Sheba in the novel which I think Petra kept in the screenplay was describing her as a face sort of person but how lost and how fragile she is I think was ultimately my starting page moving swiftly on to the ABI do you talked about playing Katherine Hepburn before playing a real character but again not a slavish imitation I don't think I mean I tend to think it's your version of her I mean but again a lot of people would expect you know mr. poured over endless hours of footage of of Hepburn to do the role but I mean how do you approach something like that because it's a she's such a well-known certainly as a screen image we don't know her off screen particularly but at all I'm just intensely private and and it was also in a period where actors were very protected by the studio so in terms of interviews I mean it's a very modern thing this whole kind of recording of an actor's life off screen but I mean first of all you asked Martin Scorsese what do you want what what's the style of the film and he realized that it's not a biopic about Hepburn and you only have about 12 scenes to pack that extraordinary firebrand in you know as much as you can in much detail and whilst also serving a function in the in the in the film and he's the great thing about working at Scorsese obviously is he screams everything and so the Hepburn films I had seen I just seen as midday movies so I knew she was a great actress but I just didn't know how subtle her performances were and when you see her early films projected you really do see into the shifts the nuances that perhaps were lost to me earlier performance is on the small screen but another film that that Scorsese really insistently showed us was his girl Friday with Rosslyn muscle and Carrie grabbed that the the speed and the energy and the precision of the delivery and of course the night he didn't ever stell say that to me but he allowed me to put two and two together that that was what he was after with my entry point into the into the film I think of course as he really wanted in that first scene the way it was written that that she come on with a bang and so that was my function and I hopefully fulfilled it which you know and you know when you embark upon the role that you are going to be some people are going to despise what you do because she's so owned and claimed by the audience and they're gonna be so shocked to see a young Hepburn in color so they're automatically going to be dislocated from what you're doing I mean Scorsese was so kind in the beginning leader said you know you gonna have a wig you're gonna wear a wig red hair oh we can easy don't have to wear a wig you look great as you are you know and so so he was basically trying to say to me don't worry whatever you do is fine which is a great thing for Joe [Music]

Channel: BAFTA Guru

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Keywords: BAFTA, BAFTA Guru, British Academy Of Film And Television Arts (Award Presenting Organization), creative, career, film making, TV, gaming, actor, advice, movie, movies, movie making, cate blanchett, cate blanchett interview, acting, lord of the rings, elizabeth, blue jasmine, thor ragnarok, the talented mr ripley, the aviator

Id: _fjmiuuqKXs

Length: 26min 23sec (1583 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2017