Cate Blanchett
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Cate Blanchett (born May 14, 1969) is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning Australian actress.
Personal life
She was born Catherine Elise Blanchett in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the daughter of a Texan naval petty officer of distant French descent who came ashore in Melbourne and met her mother, a Melbourne schoolteacher. Her father, Robert, later worked in advertising after marrying her mother, June. He died of a heart attack when Cate was 10 years old. She has two siblings; the elder, Bob, is a computer programmer, and her younger sister, Genevieve, is a theatrical designer.Her husband is playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton, whom she met in 1996 while she was performing in a production of The Seagull. It was not love at first sight, however. "He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant," Blanchett later remarked. "It just shows you how wrong you can be. But once he kissed me that was that." The two were married on December 29, 1997. Their first child, son Dashiell John, was born on December 3, 2001; their second child, son Roman Robert, was born on April 23, 2004. The younger son received a minor burn injury on May 15, 2005 while the family was in Marrakech, Morocco, for the filming of the movie Babel. After treatment there, Blanchett flew with him to London for further treatment.
After making England her main family home for most of the early 2000s, she has recently returned to her native Australia.
Career
Blanchett's secondary education was in Melbourne at the Methodist Ladies' College, where she explored her passion for acting. She studied economics and fine art at university before leaving Australia to travel. She returned to Australia and later moved to Sydney to study at the National Institute of Dramatic Art; graduating in 1992 and beginning her career on the stage. Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush in the 1993 David Mamet play Oleanna. She also appeared as Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994-95 Company B production of Hamlet, directed by Neil Armfield, starring Richard Roxburgh and Geoffrey Rush.She had roles in Australian television drama mini-series. She appeared as 'Elizabeth Ashton' in the mini-series Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo ("Heartland" is known as "Burned Bridges" in the United States), and she appeared as Bianca in the mini-series Bordertown.
Her film debut was as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese in the prisoner of war production of Paradise Road directed by Bruce Beresford, that co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand.
Blanchett is perhaps best known for her role as Elizabeth I, Queen of England in the 1998 movie Elizabeth. This role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, which she was widely considered to be likely to win (however the award instead went to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love. Controversey over Paltrow's win remains to this day. Blanchett later won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for playing Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. This made Blanchett the first person ever to garner an Academy Award for playing a previous Oscar-winning actor.
Already an acclaimed actress, Blanchett received a host of new fans when she appeared in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies. She played the role of the High Elf Queen Galadriel in all three films.
Blanchett is currently reprising her role as Elizabeth I in the upcoming sequel tentatively entitled 'The Golden Age' and is set to star as Bob Dylan in the upcoming biopic I'm Not There.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Award Nominations and/or Wins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | ''Benjamin Button | ||
| 2006 | Golden Age | Elizabeth I | |
| Babel | Susan | ||
| ''The Good German | Lena Brandt | ||
| ''Notes on a Scandal | Sheba Hart | ||
| 2005 | Little Fish | Tracy Heart | Won Australian Film Institute award (AFI) for Best Lead Actress |
| 2004 | The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou | Jane Winslett-Richardson | Nominated for BFCA award for Best Acting Ensemble |
| The Aviator | Katharine Hepburn | Won Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress Won BAFTA award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role Won SAG award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated for BFCA award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated for Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress | |
| 2003 | Galadriel | Won SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast Won BFCA award for Best Acting Ensemble | |
| The Missing | Maggie Gilkeson | ||
| Coffee and Cigarettes | Cate / Shelly | ||
| Veronica Guerin | Veronica Guerin | ||
| 2002 | Galadriel | Nominated for SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast | |
| Heaven | Philippa | ||
| 2001 | The Shipping News | Petal Bear | |
| Charlotte Gray | Charlotte Gray | ||
| Galadriel | Nominated for SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast | ||
| Bandits | Kate Wheeler | Nominated for Golden Globe for Best Actress - Comedy or Musical Nominated for SAG award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role | |
| 2000 | The Gift | Annabelle "Annie" Wilson | |
| The Man Who Cried | Lola | ||
| 1999 | Bangers | Julie-Anne | |
| The Talented Mr. Ripley | Meredith Logue | Nominated for BAFTA for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | |
| Pushing Tin | Connie Falzone | ||
| An Ideal Husband | Lady Gertrude Chiltern | ||
| 1998 | Elizabeth | Elizabeth I of England | Nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress Won Golden Globe for Best Actress - Drama Won BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated for SAG award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Won BFCA Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress |
| 1997 | Oscar and Lucinda | Lucinda Leplastrier | Nominated for Australian Film Institute award (AFI) for Best Lead Actress
|
| Thank God He Met Lizzie | Lizzie | Won Australian Film Institute award (AFI) for Best Supporting Actress
| |
| Paradise Road | Susan Macarthy | ||
| 1996 | Parklands | Rosie | |
| 1994 | Police Rescue | Vivian |
Awards won
- 1992 Sydney Theatre Critics Award: Best Actress for David Mamet's Oleanna
- 1993 Sydney Critics Circle Award: Best Newcomer for Timothy Daly's Kafka Dances
- 1997 AFI Award: Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Thank God He Met Lizzie
- 1997 Sydney Film Critics Award: Best Supporting Actress for Thank God He Met Lizzie
- 1998 BAFTA Award: Best Actress for Elizabeth
- 1998 : Best Actress, Drama, for Elizabeth
- 2003 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Ensemble Cast for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- 2005 Academy Award - Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator
- 2005 British Academy of Film and Television Arts: Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator
- 2005 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator
- 2005 AFI Award: Best Lead Actress for Little Fish
- 2006 Mo Award: Best Female Actor in a Play for Hedda Gabler
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Awards nominated
- 1997 AFI Award: Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for Oscar and Lucinda
- 1998 Academy Award: Nominated for Best Actress for Elizabeth
- 1999 BAFTA Award: Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for The Talented Mr. Ripley
- 2001 Golden Globe Awards: Nominated for Best Actress, Musical or Comedy, for Bandits
- 2005 Golden Globe Awards: Nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator
Quotes
- "If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously."
- On the Lord of the Rings trilogy: "I had never done anything with blue screen before, or prosthetics, or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But, to be honest, I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head."
- "If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life - that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment - that would be the perfect state."
External links
- [Cate Blanchett] - Australian Film Commission
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