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I had the pleasure of meeting Cate Blanchett herself twice. The first was in 2013 when she played a crazy maid in the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) stage play The Maids, directed by Jean Genet and played opposite by veteran French actor Isabelle Huppert. The second time we met was at last year's Glastonbury Festival, where she performed live with the band Sparks, wearing a bright yellow suit and scarlet headphones, and contributing an expressive dance. Two encounters gave me the privilege of seeing the multifaceted career of the two-time Oscar winner: not only one of the world's best actors, but also a producer, a fashion icon, a climate protection activist, and a global goodwill ambassador for UNHCR.
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Kate lives in the English countryside, living in this lush countryside with her husband, Andrew Upton, a writer and director, and their four children. I asked her what "Kate-Exclusive" activities she would do with me if we could meet in person instead of via Zoom? The idea was always teased by the family, and the kids always said, 'What a walk, every time it turns into a hike!'" Kate told me that she grew up in a quiet suburb of Melbourne as a child, and that her father died when she was 10 years old, leaving her mother to raise her three children on her own (Kate has an older brother and a younger sister). So, "You have to entertain yourself." We would play the game of 'guess the coin walk', which is to toss a coin, with the front side representing the left side and the negative side representing the right, and just going around and exploring the different natural areas in the vicinity. Sometimes when I walk too far from home, I have to find a phone booth and call my mother to pick me up."
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Kate loves to laugh, and I am always surprised by her self-deprecating expressions and the occasional meat joke. For example, I asked her if she was still seeking everyone's approval, and she replied that if she denied that fact, "it's like saying that I never pee in the shower." But when I asked her if she was nostalgic for the old days, as an actress who has been in the film for many years and has produced countless works, she solemnly answered this question about nostalgia.
"It's no secret that the 'good old days' don't exist," she noted, "and it's really just an excuse to take a lot of really bad things back to the good old days of the arrogant, brutal white people." "The film industry still has a long way to go when it comes to gender equality. For example, of the 1,600 most popular films released between 2007 and 2022, only 6% were by female directors. In an effort to change that, Kate recently made a bold attempt to launch a "Proof of Concept Accelerator" with Dr. Stacy L. Smith from the USC think tank Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and her partner at her husband, Upton's production company, Dirty Films, aims to improve the perception of women and marginalized groups across society. The program provides $50,000 to up to eight filmmakers to produce a "proof-of-concept" feature film or TV show, along with a mentorship program to help those producers get started.
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Kate explains: "Basically, any industry that is old-fashioned, cookie-cutter loses its creativity and becomes dead. But she also anticipates that her efforts will be thwarted, and that "soon someone will politicize it and even see it as an invasion." I don't know when inclusion turned into an invasion, but some people don't know how to look for opportunities in it, but are instinctively wary of it. "Kate is a straightforward person, and she doesn't shy away from questions that are difficult to answer. In fact, she loves the way she communicates. In 2022, she played a talented but megalomaniacal conductor in the film Tàr, and audiences received mixed reviews: some liked the character's intimidating, otherworldly temperament, but on the other hand, the film's handling of issues such as "cancel culture" and "woke" politics angered many.
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Commenting on her experience working with Kate, Todd Field, writer and director of "Tár," said: "She's a brave and fearless artist, and she wants you to make her feel awe-inspired. She's unflinching, imposing, and fearless, and it's astounding. Although she bears no resemblance to the hard-nosed Lydia Tàr in the film, you can still sense that she has always treated her work in an almost greedy way. Kate likes to say yes to her work, and as it happens, she's the face of the Giorgio Armani Sì (Italian for yes) collection. So, how would she choose between such a variety of jobs and projects? After a moment of contemplation, she replied, "There must be something in awe of me, or something unknown and beyond my knowledge, in order for me to be interested." This is what I would very much like to see. And, of course, there is also good communication along the way, a term she often uses to describe her collaborative nature.
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She and her husband are very good communicators. She recalls the years when the two were co-artistic director and CEO of Sydney Theatre from 2008 to 2014: "When we started working at Sydney Theatre, the first thing Andrew did was take the desk out of the office, saying: 'The office should be a place of conversation, and if the boss sits behind a desk with a computer and the artist sits on the other side of the table, that is inherently problematic. ’”
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She describes that period as "one of the most fulfilling creative periods of her career to date". The couple was also responsible for transforming the company's buildings into eco-friendly design models, including adding 1,906 solar panels on the roof and a 100,000-litre rainwater harvesting system under the roof. Kate's choice of clothing also reflects her commitment to sustainability, as she likes to wear the same dress on different red carpets and is a strong supporter of upcycling designs. For example, when she attended the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2024 show in Paris, she wore a dress remade from the 2023 Oscar evening dress, and the Nicolas Ghesquière gown she wore to the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) this year was custom-made from second-hand fabrics.
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In Kate's view, sustainable living is a good attempt to challenge yourself in creative ways. "What appeals to me the most about this approach is that it provides an opportunity to think outside the box, like the one we did with the Sydney theatre company," she says. For her, the idea of re-dressing and reusing fashion is also a way to explore and learn from the past. As she puts it, "If we refuse to look back, we end up repeating ourselves in an unconscious way." ”
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While she is referring to costumes, this philosophy is also reflected in her recent appearances, such as "The New Boy," a film directed by Warwick Thornton from Dirty Films, in which she plays a rebellious nun. The film is set during a dark period in Australian history, when the Australian government sought to isolate Indigenous children, assimilating them by forcing them away from their parents and cultural means. Last year, Australia's Voice referendum opposed the appointment of Aboriginal representatives to parliament, further deepening the divide between Australians. "New Boy" is a poignant reminder of the legacy of Australia's history that still haunts the country.
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Taking advantage of filming in southern Australia, Kate returned to Adelaide, where the Sydney Theater Company regularly toured. She made no secret of her desire to return to the theatre stage, telling me: "I feel like I need to push my abilities to the limit in this way, something I haven't done in a long time." My filmmaking skills are largely due to my stage experience. On stage, you can communicate with the audience in real time, from the heart. When I asked her how she kept her up to date with the world, she smiled and said, "Take the subway and get around!" It's a great place to observe people and so on, so no one pays attention to anyone else. Speaking of hobbies, she mentioned that she has recently fallen in love with cold water swimming and always carries a lot of books with her when she travels. She now carries John Gray's "The New Leviathans," Angela Saini's "The Patriarchs" ("a great documentary book"), and "The Collapse of Western Civilization" by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.
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She is always on the lookout for more creative opportunities. "You just have to walk around and think freely about all kinds of things and ideas, and from time to time the thought comes to your head, 'Oh, this might be worth communicating,' and then you share it with other people. It's hard to imagine that an influential person like Kate likes to hang out, but she also doesn't like the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. "I'm not interested in networking," she admits. I'm always on the phone and say, 'I have to work with you face-to-face,' and I'm an older school person in that regard. ”
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On top of that, a lot of the fruitful discussions came from family members, "I often have deep conversations with the children, and they like to challenge me constantly," she says. Like the "coin guessing walk" as a child, Kate still loves the feeling of getting lost: "Every time I go home, I like to deviate from the original route and choose a different path. Because I'm curious, I often think, "Hey, I don't know what I'm going to see on that road." ”