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Cate Blanchett

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Cate Blanchett
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  • Born: 14 May 1969
  • Birthplace: Melbourne, Australia
  • Best Known As: Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings movies

Cate Blanchett is one of the Australia's best-known actors, as well as an Oscar-winner for her supporting role in the 2004 film The Aviator. Blanchett grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where she studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art before embarking on a career on stage and screen. Critics first took notice of the willowy actress when she appeared in Oscar and Lucinda (1997), and her lead role in 1998's Elizabeth (as Queen Elizabeth I) earned her a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. She later appeared in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999, opposite Matt Damon), Pushing Tin (1999, opposite Billy Bob Thornton) and Bandits (2001, with Thornton and Bruce Willis). She played the mystical Galadriel in Peter Jackson's movie trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings, beginning with The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001. In 2005 she won an Oscar as best supporting actress for playing Katharine Hepburn in the 2004 film The Aviator (with Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes). She again played Elizabeth I in the 2007 film Elizabeth: The Golden Age (with Clive Owen as adventurous scalawag Sir Walter Raleigh).

Blanchett married writer Andrew Upton in 1997. The couple's son Dashiell was born in 2001, and a second son, Roman, was born in 2004.

 
 
Actor:

Cate Blanchett

  • Born: May 14, 1969
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '90s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
  • Career Highlights: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Elizabeth, An Ideal Husband
  • First Major Screen Credit: Bordertown (1995)

Biography

With her regal and elegant visage, Aussie actress Cate Blanchett broke through the mob of aspiring actors and instantly ascended the ranks to Hollywood stardom with her Academy Award-nominated turn as Elizabeth I in Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth (1998). Her concomitantly poignant and fierce portrayal won admiration from critics and filmgoers, but she had maintained a low enough profile in years prior (and her celebrity materialized so quickly) that the Elizabeth triumph appeared to pull the heretofore unseen actress from out of thin air and caught just about everyone off guard.

Born in Melbourne on May 14, 1969, Catherine Elise Blanchett entered the world as the daughter of an Australian mother and a Texas-born American father, with two siblings. Her dad died of a heart attack when she was ten and her mother subsequently raised her. Blanchett studied economics and fine art at the University of Melbourne, but -- reeling from ennui and dissatisfaction -- she set off in search of an alternate vocation and traveled for a period of time, perhaps in search of herself. Blanchett ultimately landed in Egypt, where a chance bit part in an Arabic boxing film introduced her to a newfound love of acting. Taking this as a firm cue, Blanchett harkened back to Sydney, where she enrolled in and ultimately graduated from the highly esteemed National Academy of Dramatic Art. Blanchett later joined the Sydney Theatre Company, where she earned positive notices in a production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. A subsequent role in Timothy Daley's musical Kafka Dances won Blanchett a 1993 New Comer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle, an honor doubled that same year when she gleaned a Rosemont Best Actress Award for her performance opposite future Elizabeth co-star Geoffrey Rush in David Mamet's Oleanna.

The considerable prestige that accompanied these theatrical triumphs led Blanchett to the small screen, where she appeared in various programs for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, including the drama Heartland and the cop series Police Rescue. Her television performances caught the attention of director Bruce Beresford, who cast her in his 1997 POW drama Paradise Road as a shy Australian nurse, opposite Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. 1997 proved to be a busy year as it also found her staring in the comedy Thank God He Met Lizzie, for which she netted an Australian Film Institute Best Actress Award. By the end of the year she had an even bigger event than any successful acting gigs, as she was married in December to British film technician Andrew Upton. With the considerable amount of praise and recognition Blanchett was receiving in her native country and a partner in her personal life to share it with, it was only a matter of time and opportunity before she became known to a wider audience. That opportunity arrived that very same year, with her role in Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of Peter Carey's novel Oscar and Lucinda. Opposite Ralph Fiennes, Blanchett won almost uniform praise for her performance in a tepidly received film.

Blanchett came first-billed in the following year's Elizabeth. The film drew swift and unequivocal praise, and Blanchett's portrayal of the queen turned her into Los Angeles' newest cause célèbre. A plethora of awards greeted Kapur's feature and Blanchett's performance, including a Best Actress Academy Award nomination and eight additional Oscar nods. The actress won a Golden Globe and British Academy Award, in addition to a host of critics' circle awards.

With that experience under her belt, Blanchett starred opposite Angelina Jolie, John Cusack, and Billy Bob Thornton in the Mike Newell comedy Pushing Tin (1999). Although the film dive-bombed at the box office, critics singled out Blanchett's fine performance as a Long Island housewife. The same year, she played another domestic, albeit one of an entirely different stripe, in Oliver Parker's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. Despite a uniformly strong cast including Jeremy Northam, Rupert Everett, and Julianne Moore, the film divided critics, although Blanchett herself again earned favorable notices.

Blanchett maintained a busy schedule after the Newell project, appearing in a plethora films throughout the early 2000s. She joined Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci with her role as a kindhearted albeit materialistic showgirl in The Man Who Cried, then starred as a fortune-teller who holds the key to a mysterious murder in director Sam Raimi's The Gift, an unwitting accomplice in the crime comedy Bandits, a British schoolteacher in Tom Tykwer's Kieslowski update Heaven, and Galadriel, Queen of Lothlórien, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Blanchett also appeared in 2001's The Shipping News (as Petal) and director Gillian Armstrong's Charlotte Gray as the title character. That same year, she gave birth to her first son, Dashiell John.

Blanchett appeared as ill-fated Irish journalist Veronica Guerin in director Joel Schumacher and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's eponymously titled 2003 biopic. The film split critics in half and died a quick death in cinemas during its late-autumn run, but those reviewers who did respond favorably again singled out the actress' stunning interpretation of the role. The following year, Blanchett appeared in Wes Anderson's quirky film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou alongside Bill Murray and Owen Wilson. Blanchett wore a prosthetic belly in the film for her role as a seven-months-pregnant journalist and, interestingly enough, she later found that she was actually pregnant during filming. She gave birth to her second son, Roman Robert, later that same year. First, however, she effortlessly lit up the screen with a performance as film legend Katharine Hepburn in director Martin Scorsese's lavish Howard Hughes epic The Aviator. If The Aviator's Best Picture loss to Million Dollar Baby proved somewhat disappointing to Scorsese fans when the Oscars were handed out, Blanchett landed her greatest triumph that evening: she won the Best Supporting Actress award for her turn as Hepburn.

Perhaps despairing of the paucity of solid scripts in Hollywood, Blanchett went global after the Scorsese affair. She returned to her native Australia for a low-key follow-up, Rowan Woods' harrowing and skillful Little Fish (2005). 2006's multi-national production Babel, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, won the Best Director Award at Cannes; one of the narrative strands in its array of subplots featured Blanchett and Brad Pitt as husband and wife, grieving over the death of a child, and thrust into a desperate situation. Babel turned out to be a major critical success, as did another film Blanchett appeared in that same year, Notes on a Scandal. In the film, Blanchett played a mother and schoolteacher who becomes deeply embroiled in a maze of power and deception when she betrays her job and family by carrying on an affair with a student. The tautly suspenseful and intimate film also starred Judi Dench, who played Blanchett's friend and confidant who soon becomes a source of emotional blackmail. The actresses were each praised for their performances, and each received both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for their work in the film.

Blanchett went on to play Lena Brandt in The Good German, Steven Soderbergh and Paul Attanasio's tale of a man (George Clooney) searching for his former mistress (Blanchett) in post-WWII Berlin. She also signed on for Poison helmer Todd Haynes' I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan, slated for release in 2007. The eccentric bio of the pop singer co-starred Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, Adrien Brody, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, with numerous varied performers playing the musician in different sequences. Also set for release in 2007 was Blanchett's return to one of her greatest triumphs as Elizabeth I in The Golden Age, Shekhar Kapur's sequel to his 1998 arthouse hit Elizabeth, which would take place later in the Virgin Queen's reign. Geoffrey Rush agreed to reprise his role as Sir Francis Walsingham, and the film would also feature Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh, establisher of the first New World colony and controversial figure of the Elizabethan court.

Blanchett also agreed to join the cast of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, scheduled for release in 2008. The David Fincher-directed fantasy was adapted by Eric Roth from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a man who begins to age backwards. ~ Rebecca Flint, All Movie Guide

 
Spotlight: Cate Blanchett

From our Archives: Today's Highlights, May 14, 2006

Happy 37th birthday to Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett. Winner of the Best Supporting Actress award for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, the Australian began her professional acting career on the stage, performing with the Sydney Theatre Company, and winning a 1993 Newcomer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle (for Kafka Dances) and a Rosemont Best Actress Award (for Oleanna). She was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the title role in Elizabeth, and played Galadriel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
 
Wikipedia: Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Cate_Blanchett.jpg
Birth name Catherine Élise Blanchett
Born May 14 1969 (1969--) (age 38)
Flag of Australia Ivanhoe, Australia
Years active 1996 - present
Spouse(s) Andrew Upton (1997-)
Children Dashiell John Upton (b.2001)
Roman Robert Upton (b.2004)

Catherine Élise Blanchett (born May 14, 1969), better known as Cate Blanchett, is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning Australian actress. She has also won various awards, most notably including two SAGs and two BAFTAs, making her one of a few actors who won all four major motion picture acting awards.

Blanchett made her debut success in the 1998 film Elizabeth, directed by Shekhar Kapur, in which she played Elizabeth I of England. She is also known for her portrayals in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy as the High elf queen Galadriel and in The Aviator as Katharine Hepburn, the latter brought her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Biography

Early life and education

Blanchett was born in Ivanhoe, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, daughter of June, an Australian property developer and teacher, and Robert Blanchett, a Texas-born United States Navy Petty Officer who met Blanchett's mother while stationed in Melbourne and later worked as an advertising executive.[1][2] When Blanchett was 10, she lost her father to a heart attack. She has described herself during childhood as "part extrovert, part wallflower".[3] She has two siblings; the older brother, Bob, is a computer systems engineer, and her younger sister, Geneviève, is a theatrical designer.[3]

Blanchett attended primary school in Melbourne at Ivanhoe East Primary School before completing secondary education at Methodist Ladies' College, where she explored her passion for acting. She studied economics and fine art at the University of Melbourne before leaving Australia to travel. When she was 18, Blanchett went on a vacation to Egypt. A fellow guest at a cheap hotel in Cairo asked if she wanted to be an extra in a movie, and the next day she found herself in a crowd scene, cheering for an American boxer who was losing to an Egyptian. She walked off from the set. 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 in the theatre.

Career

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 Rush and Richard Roxburgh. Blanchett appeared in the mini-series Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo, the mini-series Bordertown and in the Police Rescue episode, "The Loaded Boy". She made her Australian film debut in the 1994 feature film of Police Rescue as a teacher taken hostage by armed bandits.

Blanchett made her international film debut as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese in a production of Paradise Road directed by Bruce Beresford, co-starring Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. Blanchett's first high-profile role was as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 movie Elizabeth. This role earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, losing to Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love. However, Blanchett's performance won her a British Academy (BAFTA) Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama.

The following year, Blanchett was nominated for another BAFTA Award for her supporting role in The Talented Mr. Ripley. She won an Academy Award 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/actress. 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, which hold the record as the highest grossing film trilogy of all time.[4]

In 2006 she starred in both Babel opposite Brad Pitt, and Notes on a Scandal playing Sheba Hart opposite Dame Judi Dench. Dench won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for playing Elizabeth I, the same year Blanchett lost for playing the same historical figure, albeit in a different category. She received her third Academy Award nomination for her performance in the film (Dench was also Oscar nominated). Blanchett reprised her role as Elizabeth I in the sequel to Elizabeth titled Elizabeth: the Golden Age. Blanchett works as the face of SK-II, the luxury skin care brand owned by Procter & Gamble. In 2007, Blanchett was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World. Also in 2007, Blanchett was named one of the most successful actresses by Forbes.

Blanchett is set to star as a young Bob Dylan in the feature film I'm Not There. As of 2008, she and her husband will commence three-year contracts as artistic co-directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. The contracts include a clause that will allow either of them to take three months out each year to pursue other activities. Blanchett also makes a cameo appearance in the fourth installment to the Indiana Jones sequel.

Personal life

Blanchett's husband is playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton, whom she met in 1996 while she was performing in a production of The Seagull. They were married the following year 1997. 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, Dashiell John, was born on December 3, 2001; their second child, 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 initial 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 and her husband returned to their native Australia. In 2006, Blanchett said in a Vogue interview of November 2006:

Andrew and I realized how much Australia meant to us. We saw the theatre community in Sydney and we felt, well, we know you all; we have worked with many of you. We have tried to live a few other places, but something really hit us in the gut. It's just a feeling about what home is. It became clear to us, particularly after the children were born, that family and the theatrical community in Australia were a large part of who we are.[5]

In 2006 a portrait of Cate Blanchett and family painted by McLean Edwards was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. The prize is awarded for the "best portrait painting preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in Art, Letters, Science or Politics".[6]

Blanchett said she has a crush for Harrison Ford since her teenage years and finds him to be an attractive star.[7]

Filmography and awards

Year Film Role Notes and Awards
1996 Parklands Rosie
1997 Oscar and Lucinda Lucinda Leplastrier Nominated for Australian Film Institute award for Best Lead Actress
Thank God He Met Lizzie Lizzie Won Australian Film Institute award for Best Supporting Actress
Paradise Road Susan Macarthy
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
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
2000 The Gift Annabelle "Annie" Wilson
The Man Who Cried Lola
2001 The Shipping News Petal Quoyle
Charlotte Gray Charlotte Gray
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 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
2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Galadriel Nominated for SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast
Heaven Philippa
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Galadriel Won SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast
Won BFCA award for Best Acting Ensemble
The Missing Magdalena 'Maggie' Gilkeson
Coffee and Cigarettes Herself & Shelly
Veronica Guerin Veronica Guerin Nominated for Golden Globe for Best Actress - Drama
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
2005 Little Fish Tracy Heart Won Australian Film Institute award for Best Lead Actress
2006 Babel Susan Jones Won Gotham Award for Best Ensemble
Nominated for SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Nominated for BFCA award for Best Acting Ensemble
The Good German Lena Brandt
Notes on a Scandal Sheba Hart Nominated for BFCA award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated for Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated for SAG award for Best Supporting Actress
Nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
2007 Hot Fuzz Janine Uncredited Cameo
Elizabeth: The Golden Age Elizabeth I
I'm Not There Bob Dylan Won Volpi Cup for Best Actress
In the Company of Actors Self
2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Daisy
2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox Mrs. Fox Voice


Awards
Academy Award
Preceded by
Renée Zellweger
for Cold Mountain
Best Supporting Actress
for The Aviator
2004
Succeeded by
Rachel Weisz
for The Constant Gardener
BAFTA Award
Preceded by
Judi Dench
for Mrs. Brown
Best Actress
for Elizabeth
1998
Succeeded by
Annette Bening
for American Beauty
Preceded by
Renée Zellweger
for Cold Mountain
Best Supporting Actress
for The Aviator
2004
Succeeded by
Thandie Newton
for Crash
Golden Globe Award
Preceded by
Judi Dench
for Mrs. Brown
Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
for Elizabeth
1998
Succeeded by
Hilary Swank
for Boys Don't Cry
Venice Film Festival
Preceded by
Helen Mirren
for The Queen
Best Actress
for I'm Not There
2007
Succeeded by
TBD

References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
  1. ^ Cate Blanchett's biography_ Elle December 2003. Elle. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
  2. ^ Cate Blanchett's biography. filmreference.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
  3. ^ a b
  4. ^ Top Trilogies worldwide. Box Office Mojo (September 21, 2004). Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
  5. ^ Michael Specter (November 2006). Head First. Vogue. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.
  6. ^ Archibald Prize 07. Art Gallery NSW. Retrieved on 2007-07-19.
  7. ^ "Cate Blanchett is completely in love with Harrison Ford", andhranews.net. Retrieved on 2007-10-17. 

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