Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress of screen and stage. She is widely
considered one of the best actors of her generation, and has received critical acclaim and many
accolades throughout her career, including two Academy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild
Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and three BAFTA Awards.
She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998
film Elizabeth, for which she won the British Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden
Globe award, and earned her first Academy Award nomination. Her portrayal of Katharine
Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's 2004 film, The Aviator, brought her critical acclaim and
various accolades, including an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In
2013, she starred in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, for which she won an Academy Award for Best
Actress in a Leading Role. She is one of only six actresses to win Oscars for both Best
Actress and Best Supporting Actress and the only Australian actor to win two Academy Awards.
Blanchett's other notable films include Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and
The Hobbit trilogy, Veronica Guerin, Babel, Notes on a Scandal, Elizabeth: The Golden
Age, I'm Not There, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button. Blanchett has also had an extensive career
on stage, including starring as Susan in Plenty in the West End in 1999 and the title role
in Hedda Gabler with the Sydney Theatre Company in 2004. From 2007-2012, she and her husband
Andrew Upton were artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company, with her roles including
Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire in Sydney, Brooklyn Academy of Music in NY,
and Washington D.C, at the Kennedy Center, Yelena in Uncle Vanya in Sydney, Washington
D.C, at the Kennedy Center, and New York, at the Lincoln Center and The Maids in Sydney
and New York, at the Lincoln Center, alongside French actress Isabelle Huppert.
Blanchett was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government
on 30 March 2012.
Early life Cate Blanchett was born on 14 May 1969 in
the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe. Her mother, June, was an Australian property developer
and teacher, and her father, Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., was a Texas native who was
a United States Navy petty officer and later worked as an advertising executive. The two
met while Blanchett's father's ship, USS Arneb, was in Melbourne. When Blanchett was ten,
her father died of a heart attack. She is the middle of three children with an older
brother, Bob, who is a computer systems engineer, and a younger sister, Genevieve, who worked
as a theatrical designer. Her ancestry includes English, and more distant French and Scottish
forebears. Blanchett has described herself as being "part
extrovert, part wallflower" during childhood. She attended primary school in Melbourne at
Ivanhoe East Primary School. For her secondary education, she attended Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar
School and then Methodist Ladies' College, where she explored her passion for acting.
She studied economics and fine arts at the University of Melbourne before leaving Australia
to travel overseas. After a trip in Europe she went to Egypt where she was asked to be
an extra on an Egyptian boxing movie, Kaboria. On her return in Australia she then dropped
from the University of Melbourne and transferred to the National Institute for Dramatic Art
in Sydney to pursue the acting profession. Career
1992–2000 Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey
Rush in the 1992 David Mamet play Oleanna, for which she won the Sydney Theatre Critics'
Best Newcomer Award. She also appeared as Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994–95 Company
B production of Hamlet, directed by Neil Armfield, starring Rush and Richard Roxburgh. Blanchett
appeared in the TV miniseries Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo, the miniseries Bordertown with
Hugo Weaving, and in an episode of Police Rescue entitled "The Loaded Boy". She also
appeared in the 1994 telemovie Police Rescue as a teacher taken hostage by armed bandits,
and in the 50-minute drama Parklands, which received a limited release in Australian cinemas.
Also in 1994, she played a role in an episode of the long-running Australian TV series GP,
as Janie Morris, a woman living with her brother in a consensual incestuous relationship. Their
relationship is torn apart when their mother comes to visit, and notices that only one
bed appears to be slept in regularly. She made her international film debut with
a supporting role as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese Army during World War II,
in Bruce Beresford's 1997 film Paradise Road, which co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand.
Her first leading role, also in 1997, was as Lucinda Leplastrier in Gillian Armstrong's
production of Oscar and Lucinda, opposite Ralph Fiennes. Blanchett was nominated for
her first Australian Film Institute Award as Best Leading Actress for this role, but
lost out to Pamela Rabe in The Well. She did, however, win an AFI Award as Supporting Actress
in the same year for her role as Lizzie in the romantic comedy Thank God He Met Lizzie,
co-starring Richard Roxburgh and Frances O'Connor. Her first high-profile international role
was as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 movie Elizabeth, which earned her an Academy
Award nomination for Best Actress. She became the first and only actress in the history
of The Academy Awards, to be nominated in this category for the part. Blanchett lost
out to Gwyneth Paltrow for her role in Shakespeare in Love, but won a British Academy Award and
a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. The following year,
Blanchett appeared in the Anthony Minghella film The Talented Mr. Ripley alongside Matt
Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law. Blanchett received her second BAFTA nomination.
2000–2011 Already an acclaimed actress, Blanchett received
a host of new fans when she appeared in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. She played
the role of Galadriel in all three films. The trilogy holds the record as the highest
grossing film trilogy of all time. In addition to The Lord of the Rings, 2001 also saw Blanchett
diversify her portfolio with dramas Charlotte Gray and The Shipping News alongside the American
comedy Bandits, for which she earned a second Golden Globe nomination. In 2005, she won
an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's
The Aviator. This made Blanchett the first person to garner an Academy Award for playing
a previous Oscar-winning actor/actress. That same year, Blanchett won the Australian Film
Institute Award for Best Actress for her role as Tracy Heart, a recovering heroin addict
in the Australian film Little Fish. Though lesser known globally than some of her other
films, Little Fish received tremendous critical acclaim in Blanchett's native Australia.
In 2006, she starred in Babel opposite Brad Pitt, The Good German with George Clooney
and Notes on a Scandal opposite Dame Judi Dench. Blanchett received her third Academy
Award nomination for her performance in the latter film.
In 2007, Blanchett was named as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in
the World and also one of the most successful actresses by Forbes magazine. In 2007, she
won the Volpi Cup Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Supporting
Actress Golden Globe Award for portraying one of six incarnations of Bob Dylan in Todd
Haynes' feature film I'm Not There and reprised her role as Elizabeth I in the sequel Elizabeth:
The Golden Age. At the 80th Academy Awards Blanchett received two Academy Award nominations—Best
Actress for Elizabeth: the Golden Age and Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There--becoming
the eleventh actor to receive two acting nominations in the same year, and the first female actor
to receive another nomination for the reprisal of a role.
She next starred in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
as the villainous KGB agent Col. Dr. Irina Spalko, and in David Fincher's The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button, appearing on screen with Brad Pitt for a second time. On 5 December
2008, Blanchett was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6712 Hollywood
Boulevard in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre. As of 2011, Blanchett has been featured in
seven films that were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: Elizabeth, The Lord
of the Rings trilogy, The Aviator, Babel, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Blanchett
provided a voice for the film Ponyo, and appeared opposite Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's Robin
Hood, released on 14 May 2010. She attended the premiere of her film Hanna directed by
Joe Wright at the Sydney Film Festival. 2012–present
Blanchett reprised her role as Galadriel in Jackson's adaptations of The Hobbit, filmed
in New Zealand. Also in 2012, Blanchett voiced the role of "Penelope" in the Family Guy episode
"Mr. and Mrs. Stewie". Blanchett is set to appear in a film directed by Terrence Malick,
Knight of Cups. Both are scheduled to be filmed in 2012.
Blanchett played the lead role in Blue Jasmine, written and directed by Woody Allen, and costarring
Alec Baldwin and Sally Hawkins. Blanchett received rave reviews for her performance,
with some saying it was the best role of her career. The performance earned her more than
30 critics awards, NYFCC, NSFC, Golden Globe and Critic's Choice Awards), the Santa Barbara
International Film Festival Outstanding Performance of the Year award, an Australian Academy Award,
a BAFTA award, a SAG award, an Independent Film Spirit Award and an Academy Award for
Best Actress. Blanchett's win makes her just the sixth actress to win an Oscar in both
of the acting categories. She is the first Australian actor to win more than one acting
Oscar. Blanchett co-starred in George Clooney's film,
The Monuments Men. The film featured an ensemble cast, including Clooney, John Goodman, Bill
Murray, Hugh Bonneville, and Jean Dujardin, and was about a crew of art historians and
museum curators who recover renowned works of art stolen by Nazis. She voiced the part
of Valka in How to Train Your Dragon 2. She will play Lady Tremaine, the Wicked Stepmother,
in a live-action re-imagining of Cinderella. She is also confirmed to star opposite Rooney
Mara in Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, directed by Todd Haynes.
She will also star as Marisa Acocella Marchetto, a cartoonist for the New Yorker who is diagnosed
with cancer, in the HBO movie Cancer Vixen, written and directed by Julie Delpy.
Personal life Blanchett's husband is playwright and screenwriter
Andrew Upton, whom she met in 1996 on the set of a TV show. They were married on 29
December 1997 and have three sons: Dashiell John, Roman Robert, and Ignatius Martin.
After making Brighton, England, their main family home for much of the early 2000s, she
and her husband returned to their native Australia. In November 2006, Blanchett stated that this
was due to a desire to decide on a permanent home for her children, and to be closer to
her family as well as a sense of belonging to the Australian community. She and her family
live in Bulwarra, an 1877 sandstone mansion once owned by Halse Rogers Arnott, in the
harbourside Sydney suburb of Hunters Hill. It was purchased for A$10.2 million in 2004
and underwent extensive renovations in 2007 to be made more "eco-friendly".
In 2006, a portrait of Cate Blanchett and family painted by McLean Edwards was a finalist
for the Archibald Prize. Blanchett is a Patron of the Sydney Film Festival. She works as
the face of SK-II, the luxury skin care brand owned by Procter & Gamble. In 2007, Blanchett
became the ambassador for the Australian Conservation Foundation's online campaign – trying to
persuade Australians to express their concerns about climate change. She is also the Patron
of the development charity SolarAid. Opening the 2008 9th World Congress of Metropolis
in Sydney, Blanchett said: "The one thing that all great cities have in common is that
they are all different." In early 2009, Blanchett appeared in a series
of special edition postage stamps called "Australian Legends of the Screen", featuring Australian
actors acknowledged for the "outstanding contribution they have made to Australian entertainment
and culture". She, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice
in the series: once as themselves and once in character; Blanchett is depicted in character
from Elizabeth: The Golden Age. At the beginning of 2011, Blanchett lent her support for a
carbon tax. She received some criticism for this, especially from conservatives. Blanchett
and her husband are currently artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. She has announced
that the 2013 season at the Sydney Theatre Company will be her final one as artistic
director. Blanchett has said: "Theatre: the making of it, the consumption of it, at its
best has an aspect of the ambulance chase. It's walking the precipice of an imminent
disaster, the crash, the missteps, the cock-up, the collapse. That energy and secret hope
in the audience has to be harnessed ... Anything live, and truly 'alive' will contain seeds
of danger." Blanchett has spoken passionately about feminism
and politics, telling Sky News in 2013 that she was concerned that "a wave of conservatism
sweeping the globe" was threatening women's rights. She has also commented on the pressures
women in Hollywood face now: "Honestly, I think about my appearance less than I did
ten years ago. People talk about the golden age of Hollywood because of how women were
lit then. You could be Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and work well into your 50s, because
you were lit and made into a goddess. Now, with everything being sort of gritty, women
have this sense of their use-by date." In January 2014, Blanchett took part in the
Green Carpet Challenge, an initiative to raise the public profile of sustainable fashion,
founded by Livia Firth of Eco-Age. Blanchett wore a pair of Fairmined earrings set with
responsibly-sourced diamonds by the luxury Jeweller Chopard.
Filmography Awards and nominations
Theatre credits See also
List of actors who won the Academy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG, and Critic's Choice Award
for a single performance References
External links Cate Blanchett at the Internet Movie Database
Sydney Theatre Company Cate Blanchett: A Life in Pictures, BAFTA
webcast Blanchett, Cate, National Library of Australia,
Trove Blanchett, Catherine Elise in The Encyclopedia
of Women and Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia