Name: Cate
Blanchett
Overview
Date of Birth: 14 May
1969, Melbourne,
Victoria, Australia
Birth Name: Catherine Elise Blanchett
Height: 5' 8½" (1.74 m)
Trade Mark: Known for playing many different roles with
multifarious personalities, such as the young sensible English queen Elizabeth
in Elizabeth (1998), the
rude, hustling wife in The
Shipping News (2001), and the dangerous Russian villain in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull (2008).
Blonde hair and blue eyes
Highly defined cheekbones
Spouse:
Andrew
Upton (29 December 1997 -
present) (3 children
Cate was also nominated for an
Academy Award for the role but lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow.
2001 was a particularly busy year, with starring roles in Bandits (2001), The Shipping News
(2001), Charlotte
Gray (2001) and playing Elf Queen Galadriel in the "Lord Of The
Rings" trilogy. She also gave birth to her first child, son Dashiell, in
2001. In 2004, she gave birth to her second son Roman. Also, in 2004, she
played actress Katharine
Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's film "Aviator" (2004), for which she
received an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress. Two years later, she
received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for playing a
teacher having an affair with an underage student in "Notes on a
Scandal" (2006). In 2007, she returned to the role that made her a star in
"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (2007). It earned her an Oscar nomination
as Best Actress. She was nominated for another Oscar that same year as Best
Supporting Actress for playing Bob Dylan in
"I'm Not There" (2007). In 2008, she gave birth to her third child,
son Ignatius. She and her husband became artistic directors of the Sydney
Theatre Company, choosing to spend more time in Australia raising their three
sons. Because of that, her film work became sporadic, until Woody Allen cast
her in the title role in Blue Jasmine
(2013), which won her the Academy Award as Best Actress.
Trivia:
1993: She was the first person to win the Sydney Theatre Critic's
Circle Theatre award for Best Newcomer (for her role in "Kafka
Dances"), and Best Lead Actress (for her role in David Mamet's
"Oleanna", with the Sydney Theatre Company, opposite Shine (1996)
star Geoffrey
Rush in the same year.
Has an older brother named Bob who works in the computer
field, and a younger sister, Genevieve who is a theater designer.
When she was 18, Cate was on vacation in Egypt. A fellow
guest at a cheap hotel in Cairo asked if she wanted to be an extra in a movie,
the Egyptian boxing movie Kaboria [Crabs (1990)], directed by Khairy Beshara.
She appeared in 3 scenes in that movie, in one of them she was dancing to the
main song of the movie.
Attended Methodist Ladies College (MLC) in Melbourne,
Australia and was the School Drama Captain.
Her father, (Robert Blanchett) a Texan advertising
executive, died of a heart attack when she was ten years old.
After completing work on the Lord of the Rings trilogy in
the role of Galadriel, she kept and bronzed her elf ear prosthetics.
Was considered for the role of Clarice Starling in Hannibal
(2001). The part eventually went to Julianne Moore.
In an interview she gave to Fox Television Network, she
admitted blushingly that she had accepted the role of Galadriel, the Elf Queen,
in the Lord of the Rings trilogy because she always wanted to appear in a movie
wearing pointed ears.
Enjoys making lists and crossing items off as she accomplishes
them.
Chosen as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People
in the World.
Has been in 7 movies where the title contains the name of
the character she plays: Veronica Guerin
(2003), Charlotte
Gray (2001), Elizabeth
(1998), Thank
God He Met Lizzie (1997), Oscar and Lucinda
(1997), Elizabeth:
The Golden Age (2007) and Blue Jasmine
(2013). [February 2008]
Was originally going to play the role of Anna in Mike Nichols's
latest film Closer
(2004), but due to her second pregnancy she had to drop out, so it was recast
with Julia
Roberts instead.
Was the original 'Tim-Tam' girl in the series of commercials
promoting the product.
September 2004: Flew back home to Melbourne, Australia to
launch the skincare range from SK-II at Australia's leading department store
Myer. As of September 2011, she was still featured in full-page print ads for
the same cosmetic.
Was set to play "Portia" in Michael Radford's
adaptation of William
Shakespeare's The Merchant of
Venice (2004), thus reuniting with actor Joseph Fiennes,
her co-star from the blockbuster Elizabeth
(1998), but had to drop out after discovering her pregnancy. This also would
have reunited her with Ian McKellen,
with whom she appeared in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, who would
have played "Shylock". He too ultimately left the project.
By winning the Oscar for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn,
she became the first person to give an Oscar-winning portrayal of a previous
Oscar winner.
In The Life Aquatic
with Steve Zissou (2004), she appears with Anjelica Huston,
and in The
Aviator (2004), she works with Danny Huston,
the daughter and son, respectively, of director John Huston. In
addition to having played Katharine Hepburn,
who appeared in The
African Queen (1951), directed by John Huston,
she also appeared in a remake of a film that John Huston
appeared in: The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
In The Aviator
(2004), she works opposite Leonardo DiCaprio,
who plays Howard
Hughes. The year before, she appeared in The Missing
(2003) with Tommy
Lee Jones. Jones played Hughes years earlier in The Amazing Howard
Hughes (1977).
1995: Nominated for Best Female Performance by the Melbourne
Green Room Awards, for the Belvoir St Theatre Company's production of
"Hamlet".
Won the Rosemont Best Actress Award for her performance in
"Oleanna".
1992: Graduated from Australia's NIDA (National Institute of
Dramatic Art).
Was unknowingly pregnant while portraying the pregnant
journalist in The
Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004).
Four of her six Oscar nominations are for playing real
people (Queen Elizabeth I, Katharine Hepburn
and Bob Dylan).
The latter two are both Oscar winners themselves.
Won Best Female Actor, Helpmann Award for her performance in
"Hedda Gabler".
Appeared next to Hugo Weaving in
9 different projects: Bordertown
(1995), Drama
School (2000), Little Fish
(2005), The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Lord of the
Rings: The Third Age (2004), The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Making of 'The
Lord of the Rings' (2002), Quest for the Ring
(2001).
Her father, Robert De Witt Blanchett, Jr., was born in Texas
to an American Southern family that had remote French ancestry, with one
antecedent being Louis Bleriot, the first aviator to fly across the English
Channel. Her grandfather Robert De Witt Blanchett, Sr. was born in 1905 in
Arkansas, where he was also buried in 1989. Her grandmother Merle Jenevieve
Blanchett was born in Oklahoma. Much of Cate's other ancestry is British Isles
(English and some Scottish).
In "The Lord of the Rings", she worked with Elijah Wood and
Sean Astin,
who played "Frodo" and "Sam", respectively. Also appearing
with her in those films, as well as in The Aviator
(2004), was Ian
Holm, who played "Frodo" in the BBC radio series. In Notes on a Scandal
(2006), she worked with Bill Nighy, who
played "Sam" in the BBC radio series. In Elizabeth: The
Golden Age (2007), she worked with Samantha Morton,
who is engaged to Ian
Holm's son, Harry Holm.
She participated in 7 films nominated for the Best Picture
Academy Award, four of them in a row: Elizabeth
(1998), The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Aviator
(2004), Babel
(2006), and The
Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).
In Bandits
(2001), she works with Troy Garity. In
The Aviator
(2004), she plays Katharine
Hepburn, who appeared with Garity's mother, Jane Fonda and
grandfather, Henry
Fonda, in On
Golden Pond (1981).
Was considered for the role of Jane Smith in Mr. & Mrs.
Smith (2005).
15th February 2005: Attended the 2005 Elle Style Awards held
at London's trendy Spitalfields Market. Posed for photos with fellow Australian
Kylie Minogue,
who was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Her Texan father, Robert Blanchett, met her mother, June, in
Melbourne, Australia. He decided to marry her and relocate to Australia and
raise a family.
Was officially in the BAFTA longlist (Equivalently, the
semi-finals) for Best Actress in a Leading Role, for her role in Notes on a Scandal
(2006) (unlike the Oscars, where she was competing for Supporting Role), which
consisted of 15 finalists for each category (except Animated Film). However,
she was eliminated in the next round, which the five official nominees were
selected.
She and her The Shipping News
(2001) and Notes
on a Scandal (2006) co-star Judi Dench both
received Oscar-nominations for playing Queen Elizabeth I in 1999. Dench won for
her supporting role in Shakespeare in
Love (1998) while Blanchett was nominated for Elizabeth
(1998).
Was Steven Spielberg's
first choice for the role or Agatha in Minority Report
(2002). After the death of Stanley Kubrick,
he made A.I.
Artificial Intelligence (2001) his first priority, and she moved on to
other projects. She was later able to work with Spielberg in Indiana Jones and
the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Dec. 2007 - Ranked #45 on EW's The 50 Smartest People in
Hollywood.
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in
film history (#31). [2007].
In 2007, Forbes Magazine estimated her earnings for the year
at $13 million.
She is one of the elite eleven thespians to have been
nominated for both a Supporting and Lead Acting Academy Award in the same year
for their achievements in two different movies. The other nine are Fay Bainter, Sigourney Weaver,
Teresa Wright,
Barry Fitzgerald
(he has been nominated in both categories for the same role in the same movie),
Jessica Lange,
Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Holly Hunter, Julianne Moore
and Jamie Foxx.
She, Linda Hunt and Felicity Huffman
are the only performers to be nominated for an Oscar for playing a member of
the opposite sex.
She is one of five actors (and the only female actor) to be
nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films.
She played "Queen Elizabeth I" in Elizabeth
(1998) and in Elizabeth:
The Golden Age (2007). The others are Bing Crosby as
"Father Chuck O'Malley" in Going My Way
(1944) and The
Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Paul Newman as
"Fast Eddie Felson" in The Hustler
(1961) and The
Color of Money (1986), Peter O'Toole
as "King Henry II" in Becket (1964)
and The Lion in
Winter (1968) and Al Pacino as
"Michael Corleone" in The Godfather
(1972) and The
Godfather: Part II (1974).
Was listed as a potential nominee for the 2008 Razzies (but
did not make the final ballot) for her performance as "Queen Elizabeth
I" in Elizabeth:
The Golden Age (2007), a performance that earned her another Oscar
nomination. Had she earned a Razzie nod, she would have been one of the few
actors to have a Razzie and Oscar nomination for the same performance.
Good friends with actress Nicole Kidman.
Got the role in The Curious Case
of Benjamin Button (2008) after Rachel Weisz
backed out, because of scheduling problems.
Lives in Hunters Hill, Sydney, Australia.
Did not return to work until six months after giving birth
to her son Ignatius in order to take to the stage for a Broadway revival of
"A Streetcar Named Desire", where she portrayed Blanche DuBois.
She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for
Motion Picture at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December
5, 2008.
She was awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001
Queen's New Years Honours List for her services to acting and Australian
society.
Was originally cast as Mrs. Fox in Fantastic Mr. Fox
(2009), but was later replaced by Meryl Streep.
Her portrayal of Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and
the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) is director Steven Spielberg's
favorite villain in the Indiana Jones series.
Was originally cast as Izzi Creo in The Fountain
(2006), but was forced to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with
Little Fish
(2005). Rachel
Weisz was then cast instead.
Returned to work seven months after giving birth to her son
Dashiell in order to begin filming Veronica Guerin
(2003).
Returned to work six months after giving birth to her son
Roman in order to begin filming Little Fish
(2005).
Was three months pregnant with her son Ignatius when she
completed filming Indiana Jones and
the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
Admitted to not hitting it off with her husband when she
first met him. Apparently he thought she was aloof and she thought he was
arrogant.
Gave birth to her first child at age 32, a son Dashiell John
Upton on December 3, 2001. Child's father is her husband, Andrew Upton.
Gave birth to her second child at age 34, a son Roman Robert
Upton on April 23, 2004. Child's father is her husband, Andrew Upton.
Gave birth to her third child at age 38, a son Ignatius
Martin Upton on April 13, 2008. Child's father is her husband, Andrew Upton.
She was on set for only 8 days to shoot her scenes for The Hobbit: An
Unexpected Journey (2012) and the two follow-ups.
Performing in "The War Of The Roses" in Sydney,
Australia. [January 2009]
New York, NY: It was announced that she, as well as Ralph Fiennes,
will be honored by gala tributes (separately) in October by the Film Society of
Lincoln Center during its annual film festival. [August 2013]
Sydney Theatre Company announced that husband and wife Cate Blanchett
and Andrew Upton
would become artistic directors, beginning in 2008. [November 2006]
(France) Promoting Indiana Jones and
the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) at the Cannes Film Festival. [May
2008]
Washington, D.C: Performing in Anton Chekhov's
"Uncle Vanya" at The Kennedy Center with her and husband Andrew Upton's
group, the Sydney Theatre Company. [August 2011]
Grew up in the suburb of Eaglemont, part of the Greater
Melbourne area.
Five directors cast her more than once in their films: Gillian Armstrong,
Shekhar Kapur,
Steven
Soderbergh, Todd
Haynes, and Peter
Jackson.
Her older brother Bob is smart but has a mild form of
cerebral palsy. When they were growing up, Cate always stuck up for him when
the other children made fun of him. Later, when she gave birth to her second
child Roman, she gave him the middle name of Bob, named after Cate's brother.
(Bob is also her father and her grandfather's names.) And when she won the
Academy Award as Best Actress for Blue Jasmine
(2013), she thanked him in her acceptance speech.
In 2008, although she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar
for her performance in Elizabeth: The
Golden Age (2007), she publicly declared that she had voted for Marion Cotillard
in La Vie en
Rose (2007), and described her performance as Édith Piaf as
"astonishing and inspiring". When Cotillard was announced as the
winner, Blanchett was visibly happy for her win. In 2012, Blanchett wrote a
review for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in Rust and Bone
(2012).
Claimed that people mispronounce her last name all the time.
She said the correct way to pronounce it is BLAN-chit, not chet.
Holds the record as the only Australian actress to win two
Academy Awards.
The longest she has gone without an Oscar nomination is the
6 years between both Elizabeth
(1998) and The
Aviator (2004) and Elizabeth: The
Golden Age (2007), I'm Not There.
(2007) and Blue
Jasmine (2013).
Is only the sixth actress to win both leading and supporting
actress Oscars. The other five are Maggie Smith, Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Helen Hayes and
Ingrid Bergman.
The only actor to be nominated and win Oscars for both of
the iconoclast New York directors Martin Scorsese
and Woody Allen.
Was the 126th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won
the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Aviator
(2004) at The
77th Annual Academy Awards (2005) on February 27, 2005.
Shaved her head at 15 and as a result was almost fired from
her job at a nursing home.
In 2014, during the Press Conference of How to Train Your
Dragon 2 (2014) at the Cannes Film Festival, a journalist asked Blanchett
who's better between her and Marion Cotillard,
she answered saying that Cotillard is better and praised her performances in La Vie en Rose
(2007) and Rust
and Bone (2012) and also said that she couldn't wait to see Cotillard as
Lady Macbeth [in Macbeth
(2015)].
Is one of 11 actresses to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA
Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same
performance. The others in chronological order are Julia Roberts
for Erin
Brockovich (2000), Renée Zellweger
for Cold
Mountain (2003), Reese Witherspoon
for Walk the
Line (2005), Helen
Mirren for The
Queen (2006), Jennifer
Hudson for Dreamgirls
(2006), Kate
Winslet for The
Reader (2008), Mo'Nique for Precious
(2009), Natalie
Portman for Black
Swan (2010), Octavia
Spencer for The
Help (2011) and Anne Hathaway
for Les
Misérables (2012).
Holds the record for largest "Best Actress" award
sweep (42 wins) for her performance as Jasmine French in Blue Jasmine
(2013), followed by Helen Mirren
(40 wins) for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (2006)
and Natalie
Portman (38 wins) for her performance as Nina Sayers in Black Swan
(2010).
Her first Oscar nomination was for playing Queen Elizabeth I
in Elizabeth
(1998), the same year that Judi Dench won
a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing that same role in Shakespeare in
Love (1998). She went on to win her first Oscar for playing another Oscar
winner: Katharine
Hepburn in The
Aviator (2004).
Along with Ian McKellen,
she is one of only two actors to appear in all six of Peter Jackson's
Middle-earth films: The Lord of the
Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Hobbit: An
Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The
Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The
Battle of the Five Armies (2014).
She has made seven films with Peter Jackson: The Lord of the
Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the
Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the
Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Hot Fuzz
(2007), The
Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The
Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The
Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Hot Fuzz
(2007) is the only one that Jackson did not direct.
Personal
Quotes: If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously!
When asked what colour her hair is: "Look, it's one of
the great mysteries of the world, I cannot answer that question. I think I'm
vaguely blonde. To be perfectly frank, I don't know."
When asked if she has ever appeared in Neighbours
(1985): "Absolutely not. I'm an actress."
[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.
It's part of my job. You can't play Veronica Guerin s
on heavy Strine] sounding like this. It just wouldn't wash. But what I find
fascinating about doing an accent - unless it's a farce - is that it's not
slapped on. [on doing many accents]
[on working with Ron Howard in The Missing
(2003)] I loved making it, I had a ball - cowboys and Indians. This is the
thing, I love doing things which I'd never envisaged before. And so getting me
on the back of a horse, with Tommy Lee Jones
and shooting guns and chasing Indians, it's just not something that I would
have expected myself to be doing.
The more you do it, the more 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, the lead actor would in between scenes be
reading a newspaper or sleeping and I'd think, "How can you do that?"
[SAG acceptance speech Feb. 5, 2005] Thank you. I so didn't
expected this. I wore a really tight dress that's very ungracious walking up
those stairs. Thank you very much, I sort of don't know where to begin. Playing
Katharine Hepburn,
I absolutely did not expect to be standing here in front of you all. But
Hepburn aside, I actually would like to say, as an actor coming from another
country to this country, I am so astounded and amazed, and grateful, at the
power of the SAG union and what it does for its members. And I hope that other
countries, mine own included, you know, is inspired by that - I think it's
incredible.
[on her disgust of how so many of her Hollywood peers have
succumbed to using face-paralyzing Botox] It's not just women on film,
18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's
face, someone's body who'd had children and I think they're the song lines of
your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people
sort of entombing themselves and all you see is their little pin holes of
terror... and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any
easier just because your face can't move.
I'm one of those strange beasts who really likes a corset.
You know, when you see yourself on a big screen, I tend to
watch from behind my hands. There is absolutely the regret. You always get that
at the end of every project. That's what's great about theater: at least every
night you get the chance to go out and re-offend. I'm endlessly disappointed,
which is what propels me into the next project, probably, not to repair the
damage but to kind of hopefully keep developing. Otherwise there's no reason to
keep doing it, is there?
There's this sense that of course you want to be famous.
When you're a performer, of course you want an audience, but it's very, very
different from courting fame.
[on her first Oscar loss, in 1999] Sometimes I think it's so
good not to win those things. And, anyway, who wants to peak when they're 28?
Of course one worries about getting older--we're all fearful
of death, let's not kid ourselves. I'm simply not panicking as my laugh lines
grow deeper. Who wants a face with no history, no sense of humor?
Don't you think like most things, like comedy, like sex,
like anything, it's about timing? I think [my husband and I] collided with each
other at what turned out to be the perfect time. We knew each other socially
and we didn't get on and we played poker one night and I don't know how we
ended up kissing but we did and he asked me to marry him about three weeks
later and we got together in the same spirit. . . . Maybe I've got a lack of
consequence, a healthy lack of consequence.
[In 2012, on collaborating with husband Andrew Upton]:
We've had some doozies and we've had some stinkers. No one sets out to have a
stinker.
[I have] this strange, probably unachievable fantasy about
performing in German in Berlin. [But] I don't speak German.
[on being directed by Woody Allen in Blue Jasmine
(2013)] I found him forthcoming, generous and refreshingly honest. It can be
brutal when people are honest, but I much prefer to know if it's not working,
because you can do something with it - rather than people who go, 'Oh, we'll
fix it up in post [-production].' There is no post in a Woody Allen movie. If
it doesn't happen then, it doesn't happen at all.
I love Brighton. We lived in Lewes Crescent and it was the
genesis of the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland; so magical.
No one is ever who they purport to be. And I suppose I'm
most interested in the gap between who we project socially and who we really
are.
I don't know if I ever really wanted to be an actor. I'm an
active person - the thought of waiting for the phone to ring wasn't something
that sat happily with me. But I kept doing it, trying not to do it, and then
doing it. There's such a blessed unrest that you feel all the time, but maybe
that's what keeps you going.
I can be a real pessimist. You know that when you win an
Oscar and you walk offstage and your first thought is: "Oh God, I've
peaked."
I've done a lot of talking over the past six years. My
husband and I have been running the Sydney Theatre Company and it's been magic
- my kids have been able to see so many of those transient moments between
acting and real life behind the scenes. But now that I've given it up I'm
looking forward to being a bit quieter. I'm very conscious of that. There have
been times when I've heard myself in the past and thought: "Aw, just shut
up."
You don't ever really get to know Woody Allen.
He's not the sort of person where you can knock on his door and say: "I've
got this really interesting idea." You just have to hope that he's written
your name on a little scrap of paper somewhere and that one day he will call
and say: "I've got a script I want you to read."
Working with Woody [Allen] is like an emotional strip club
without the cash.
[on winning her 2nd Oscar for Blue Jasmine
(2013)] Sit down. You're too old to be standing. Thank you, Mr. Day-Lewis, from
you it exacerbates this honor to and it blows it right out of the ballpark.
Thank you so much to the Academy. As random and as subjective as this award is,
it means a great deal in a year of extraordinary, yet again, extraordinary
performances by women. Amy Adams, everything you do, but your performance in
American Hustle blew my mind. And Meryl, what can I say? Sandra [Bullock], I
could watch that performance to the end of time, and I sort of felt like I had.
Julia [Roberts], #suckit. You know what I mean? And Judi Dench, I
mean what a career. She's not here tonight because at the age of 79, her film
was so successful that she's in India doing a sequel. I mean what a career that
is, if I could hope. And me, I'm here accepting an award in an extraordinary
screenplay by Woody Allen. Thank you so much, Woody, for casting me. I truly
appreciate it. I'm so very proud that Blue Jasmine stayed in the cinemas for as
long as it did. And thank you to Sony Classics, to Michael and Tom for their
extraordinary support. For so bravely and intelligently distributing the film
and to the audiences who went to see it and perhaps those of us in the industry
who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at
the center are niche experiences. They are not. Audiences want to see them and,
in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people. Thank you to my mum, to
my sister, to my brother, to my three glorious sons. I would not be standing
here without you. To my husband, Andrew, you are a legend. Thank you to my
agent, Hylda
Queally, you're behind the pillar somewhere up there. You are a goddess. To
my agent in Australia, Robyn Gardiner,
I love you so very much. To my publicist Lisa Kasteler. To the sublime Sally Hawkins.
And to the extraordinary cast of Blue Jasmine. I don't know how to do this
without other actors and this I share with you. To the hair and makeup people
who sweat-ed me up and tried to make me look attractive. Thank you for the
attempt. To Carla Meyer for getting Sally and I together and for incredible
support. To Helen Robin. To everyone involved in Blue Jasmine, I thank you so
much. And finally, I would like to thank every single member of the Sydney
Theatre Company, one of the great theater companies in the world. For me,
working on Blue Jasmine, it was a real synthesis of my work in the theater and
on film. And not only working with you for the last six years has been the most
enormous privilege of my career but it's made me a better actress. There is so
much talent in Australia and Michael Wilkinson and C.M. and I are just
tonight's tip of the iceberg. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[on who she thinks is the better actress between her and Marion Cotillard
- Cannes Film Festival, 2014] There is no competition. Marion, hands down. I
think she is one of the world's greatest actresses. From the first few frames
of La Vie en
Rose (2007), I just thought that I'd never seen anything like it. To see
her in comic roles, and I was blown away again in Rust and Bone (2012).
We share the same agent at CAA, much to my chagrin. I think she's a genius. I
can't wait to see her Lady Macbeth.
[on if she get fed up with being asked how she handles
motherhood and her career] That question is only directed toward women:
"How do you have it all?" I think we live in a world where there's
still not equal pay for equal work. I still don't understand how in 2014 why
that's not the case. I'm not necessarily talking about the industry in which we
work. It's every industry. I think the things that have been said about women
not only in African countries but also the English-speaking world is absolutely
appalling. I think sometimes we're back in the Middle Ages. But I'm an actress
at a film festival [Cannes 2014]. I can cope with those questions, but it's
still surprising that we're still asking those questions.
[on why she got involved with How to Train Your
Dragon 2 (2014)] It's a gift to be a part of a project like this. My
children and I adored the first. And so when Dean [DeBlois, writer/director of
"How to Train Your Dragon 2"] ambushed me a few years ago at an
awards ceremony, I was intrigued. As an actor, you're used to using your body,
your face, everything you can to communicate stuff. And when you have to only
do it through your voice, and you're doing it in tandem with the most
extraordinary, state-of-the-art animation, I found it an intriguing ride over
the last three-and-a-half, four years to watch the character evolve quite
separate from me, and how you can enhance and work with what the animators are
doing. I didn't actually get to work with the other actors. I acted opposite
Dean most of the time. It was very interesting.
I always remember something that Michelle Pfeiffer
said a few years ago, which is that if you put a dollar in a jar every time you
screw up with your children, then by the time they're grown you'll have saved
enough to pay for their therapy. And I think that's true - although with
inflation it's probably gone up to five dollars by now!
[on her reaction when her father died when she was 10 years
old] The day dad died, I was playing the piano and he walked past the window
and I waved goodbye [but didn't hug or kiss him] and he died. After that I
thought I would have to kiss everybody goodbye before I left the house. It was
like I had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. I'd just be going down the street
to get some milk, and I'd do it. If I had to come back in the house because I'd
forgotten something, I'd have to go through the whole ritual again.
Salary:
Little Fish (2005)
|
$750,000
|
Robin Hood (2010)
|
$10 .000.000
|
Hanna (2011)
|
$7,000,000
|
