FILMOGRAPHY

2007] Benjamin Button
2006] Elizabeth: The Golden Age
2006] I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan
2006] Babel
2006] The Good German
2006] Notes on a Scandal
2005] Little Fish
2005] Stories of Lost Souls
2004] The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
2004] The Aviator
2003] LOTR: Return of the King
2003] The Missing
2004] The Fountain
2003] Veronica Guerin
2002] LOTR: The Two Towers
2002] Heaven
2001] The Shipping News
2001] Charlotte Gray
2001] LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring
2001] Bandits
2000] The Gift
2000] The Man Who Cried
1999] Bangers
1999] The Talented Mr. Ripley
1999] Pushing Tin
1999] An Ideal Husband
1998] Elizabeth
1997] Oscar and Lucinda
1997] Thank God He Met Lizzie
1997] Paradise Road
1996] Parklands
1995] "Bordertown" (mini)
1994] "Heartland" (mini)
1994] Police Rescue

LINKS

Aussie Cate Blanchett Online
Fortunecity.com
IMDB

POLL

Born 14 May 1969 Melbourne.

Cate has 2 siblings, an older brother Bob whose in the computer industry & a younger sister Genevieve, who was the set designer on Cyrano. When her parents met, her mom June was a teacher in Melbourne. Her father was a Texan in the United States Navy, who died when Cate was ten years old.

Cate went to the University of Melbourne where she studied economics & fine arts.

Won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role as Katharine Hepburn in 2004's The Aviator.

At 18 she did some traveling "I went and fell in love in Italy, and I think Italy opened the world for me." Cate ended up in Egypt working as an extra on a boxing movie.

She studied in Sydney at the National Institute for Dramatic Arts or NIDA & in 1992 she graduated.

After NIDA she joined the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls, then played Felice Bauer, the bride, in Timothy Daly’s Kafka Dances, winning the 1993 Newcomer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle for her performance.

Her big breakthrough was her first feature film role in the 1997 film Paradise Road also starring Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Jennifer Ehle & Julianna Margulies.

In 1998 Cate gave arugely her best performance to date in Elizabeth for which she was awarded a golden globe for best actress in a drama & nominated for an oscar eventually losing out to Gweneth Paltrow.

In 1997 Cate got married to screenwriter Andrew Upton & in 2001 they had a child Dashiell John.

Cate on her dad:
"The day Dad died, I was playing the piano, and he walked past the window and I waved goodbye...and he died. After that, I thought I would have to kiss everybody good-bye 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 had forgotten something, I'd have to go through the whole ritual again."

Cate on her passion working in Theatre:
"People talk about gossamer days when they first met the love of their life; the same thing happens in theatre. Each night, 300 or 400 people are going to see something that's only going to happen once. It's a bit like a cloudscape - never exactly the same. I love the rehearsal time theatre offers. Depth happens in film, but it can't be recreated or worked on as it can in theatre."

Cate on working in Theatre:
"What I love, is when you’re transported into the collective unconscious - that magical place between audience and stage to where you both jump."

Anthony Minghella on Cate:
"She's heart-stoppingly good. She's an exhilarating actor. Cate is completely about the work. She arrives for the work and leaves after the work, and she's not in the market for anything other than the work at hand."

Gillian Armstrong, her friend and director in Oscar And Lucinda says:
"She's a world-class champion. She has the intelligence and the craft, and she's brave - she'll always push herself. She's adorable as well, and fun to work with. I really do think the camera often sees into people's souls, and she has such a goodness. She has a good heart and that really comes through."

Shekar Kapur director of Elizabeth on Cate:
“She had a timelessness and a different kind of beauty. There was a translucence of the skin and paleness. I felt instinctively that she would be perfect, although I had never heard of her. Once we screen tested her, it was obvious that she was right.”

Writer-director Oliver Parker talks about Cate's role in An Ideal Husband:
"Lady Chiltern is a really tough part in the film, perhaps one of the more thankless roles. But it's crucial. I was keen on getting somebody who was naturally sympathetic," says who adapted the Wilde play. "I was allowed to see some of the rough footage on 'Elizabeth' in the early days and I was blown away by her,"

Geoffrey Rush remembers seeing Blanchett at NIDA:
"I was sharing a house with (drama teacher) Lindy Davies, who was directing Cate in a final-year production of Electra. Lindy had alerted me that she had an astonishing young woman in her class, and I went to see the play. Indeed, she was an extraordinary performer."

Geoffrey Rush on Cate:
"I love the fact that, after Elizabeth, she quite consciously went into films that were ensembles. It suggests that she's laying down a long-term plan to be an actress, not a star".

Acting agent Robyn Gardiner on Cate:
"She was especially talented, like all true actors she just wanted to do good work. Her aim in life was never to be a Hollywood star."

Australian director Cherie Nowlan [Thank God He Met Lizzie] talks about Cate: "I couldn't stop looking at her. She'd covered her face in white pancake makeup, but I could see underneath that she was very beautiful. It was a performance from a pretty original, unusual actor. And, like everyone else, I thought, 'This girl will go off--it's just a matter of time.' "

Cate on finding the accent for her character Meredith in The Talented Mr Ripley:
"Accents are a part of the formation of character. I love that way of finding someone's internal psychology . . . through external things like vocal patterns. It's amazing once you begin to research . well, the history of the English language I suppose, what actually forms a Southern accent. What we've found - we're working with the dialogue coach I worked with on Pushing Tin - is that with the poverty in the rural South, people move about, so there isn't the consistency that there would have been in the 1950s; so there's a lot more licence than in the world of Ripley. We had to place Meredith very specifically: they were monied, horsey people who had that languid way they spoke, that whole outdoorsy thing, which is incredibly different."

Cate on her time shooting The Talented Mr Ripley:
"Oh, I had an absolute ball. And I worked with Phil Hoffman who is a dear friend and an astonishing actor. For me he shines like a beacon in every film he's in. I made some firm friends and I saw another side of Italy."

So what role would she love to play above all others?:
"A female Hamlet," she says, grinning. "Failing that, I think the only other role I've ever really coveted is Lucy in the musical "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown".

Cate on Australian talent in the film industry:
"It's important that Australian writers, actors and directors get to work with bigger budgets in Australia. And I don't think there's anything wrong - and I'm doing it myself - to go away and work, come back and work. I don't think you have to always make films in Australia to prove you're an Australian. But I think it's so important that Government isn't short sighted about support. We can't rest on our laurels."

Cate on calling Australia home:
"I happen to be someone who loves 23-hour flights, nobody can contact you and you can sit and read and catch up with things."

Cate on Australia:
"When I think of educating children I think of educating them in Australia. And the way I talk about Australia I should get a commission from the tourist board. Yeah, I have a strong relationship to the place and of course it's where my dearest and oldest friends are."