Smells Like Cate

Cate Blanchett wants a little of her 'scent' to rub off on every movie. With her new role, she more than succeeded.

From: Woman, 2003-09-01
Date added: 2003-09-06

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She’s a national treasure in her home country Australia: She’s called “Queen Cate”, and not only since her majestic roles in “Elizabeth” and “The Lord Of The Rings”. Nevertheless Cate Blanchett rarely ends up in her small house at the beach of Sidney which is “rather manageable with 3 rooms and one kitchen” anymore, and so she tells us during the woman-interview. From time to time her husband, author and theatre director Andrew Upton, has an engagement on the spot. Then she loves “waiting for him, cooking and reading a book”. But she doesn’t allow herself such family luxury too often. Cate Blanchett has far too much lust for life and “is blessed with an inner restlessness since her birth” to be stuck in one place for too long. No wonder that she shot 12 movies in nearly as many countries during the last years and lives in London only kind of regularly.
Even son Dashiell (1 ½ years old and named after crime novelist Dashiell Hammet) hasn’t been able to stop this restlessness. Particularly as Cate isn’t one of those shiny happy Hollywood mums who have only just discovered their meaning of life in their children.
“My first pregnancy was an accident on which more longed-for babies may follow. But I haven’t changed my view on life or have become more stable. I have always known my priorities and have never mistaken the glamorous world of my job for real values.
Whether her career suffered since she is a mother? She can only laugh about this question. Not mockingly, but disbelievingly. “I don’t see my job as a career”, she says winking, “rather as being paid for my lust of taking on as many existences as possible and not showing up with the same face in every film.” A critic couldn’t say it any better. Cate Blanchett who studied at the renowned Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sidney gathered her first experiences as a professional actor on stage. She played the great female roles in Shakespeare’s dramas and was “fascinated by the discoveries made in this parallel universe”. Nowadays the actress sets very high standards even in small roles, such as in “The Talented Mr Ripley” or “The Shipping News”, because she loves to “contribute her own fragrance” to a movie almost unnoticed.
That you can’t get enough of her in leading roles is proved by her once more with her impersonisation of the Irish journalist Veronica Guerin. Blanchett has done research for this role for weeks and resembles the real Guerin uncannily. “Even if her haistyle looks terrible on my head”, she laughs. “But I don’t mind being ugly. You have to get over vanity as an actor. The most wonderful compliment I’ve ever received so far was that I’d have the perfect face for a character actress.”
She can understate the case because the fine structure of her face and skin like ivory give her style and class. But the cold appearance is deceptive. Whoever meets her gets taken in by her Australian warmth immediately. Cate Blanchett captures the persons she talks to with direct, questioning eye contact, laughs like a child or swears like a coachman and keeps on talking after the interview is finished until her assistant gently urges her.
Of course she draws a line during interviews. She doesn’t want to specify her love to her husband apart from saying that “there are only a dozen of great men on this earth, and I married one of them”. And she politely but determined avoids to answer the question about losing her father who died of a heart attack when she was just 10 years old. Even while being approachable she has separated a part of herself “about which I can talk with my biographer when I’m old.”
How precious this part is to her can be seen when she is on the set. Having just been kidding around or showing family portraits, not even an earthquake could disturb her concentration once the camera is on. Or, in order to put it as Leonardo DiCaprio, co-star in her new movie “The Aviator”, did: “If Cate sets her heart on flying to the moon, she will do it.”

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