CATE BLANCHETT
- AUSSIE ACTRESS -
G'day folks,
Catherine Elise Blanchett AC is an Australian actress and theatre director. Cate is an Academy
Award-winning actress known for roles in an array of esteemed films, including
'Elizabeth,' 'The Aviator,' 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' 'Blue
Jasmine' and 'Carol.'
“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.”
—Cate Blanchett
Synopsis
Born in 1969 in Melbourne,
Australia, Cate Blanchett studied at Australia's National Institute for
Dramatic Art, graduating in 1992. Her U.S. film debut was in 1997's Paradise
Road and she's gone on to star in a number of lauded projects,
including The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Aviator, The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button and two films about Queen Elizabeth I. In 2005, she won an Academy Award (best supporting actress) for her
role as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. She received another Oscar in 2014, this time
for best actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine (2013), and has
earned further acclaim for her role in 2015's romantic drama Carol.
Early Career
Born Catherine Élise Blanchett
in Melbourne, Australia, on May 14, 1969, Cate Blanchett began making a name
for herself in theater soon after graduating from Australia's National
Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992. She quickly won roles with the Sydney
Theater Company, first in its production of Top Girls and then in Kafka
Dances. For her latter performance, Blanchett won the Sydney Theatre
Critics Circle Newcomer Award in 1993. She also received critical acclaim for
roles in productions of Hamlet, The Tempest and The Seagull.
Golden Globe for 'Elizabeth'
Blanchett went on to land
various parts on Australian and American television series, and then made her
U.S. feature film debut in 1997's Paradise Road, about a group of women
imprisoned in Japan during WWII. Later that year, she grabbed Hollywood's
attention with her performance opposite Ralph Fiennes in Oscar and Lucinda (1997). In 1998, Blanchett's Golden
Globe-winning portrayal of England's Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth
earned the actress her first Academy Award nomination. She was 29 years old.
'Lord of the Rings' and Oscar Win
The following year, Blanchett
appeared in the first installment of The Lord of the Rings franchise,
directed by Peter Jackson and based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. She played the benevolent royal elf Galadriel in The
Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Blanchett returned to the character for the
second and third installments of the trilogy (reuniting with Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom and Liv Tyler, among other recurring Lord of the Rings cast members): The
Two Towers, released in 2002, and The Return of the King, released
in 2003.
In 2005, Blanchett garnered her
biggest cinematic accolade to date: She earned an Academy Award for best
supporting actress for portraying Katharine Hepburn in the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, directed by Martin Scorsese.
Two years later, Blanchett
returned to one of her most famous characters, Queen Elizabeth, in the film Elizabeth:
The Golden Age (2007). Picking up a later chapter in the life of
Elizabeth I, the film explores how the queen handled threats to her rule and
her relationship with explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. Blanchett earned Screen Actors Guild Award,
Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for her performance.
Portraying Bob Dylan
That same year, the actress took
on another legendary portrayal: She was one of the actors to portray music
legend Bob Dylan in the acclaimed biopic I'm Not There, directed by Todd Haynes.
For her performance as the iconic singer-songwriter, Blanchett earned another
Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, as well as Golden Globe and Oscar nods in
the supporting actress category. Also in 2007, the actress was named one of Time
magazine's "100 Most Influential People In The World."
In 2008, Blanchett starred as
the dancer Daisy alongside Brad Pitt's title character in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, about
a man who ages in reverse time. Directed by David Fincher, the movie's screenplay was inspired by a story originally written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the early 20th century.
In 2012, Blanchett returned to
the character Galadriel yet again, this time for a new Jackson-directed
series, The Hobbit.
The franchise is a trilogy based on
another work from Tolkien published years before The Lord of the Rings that features
the same world. Thus The Hobbit's cast includes many of the same
actors from The Lord of the Rings screen outings. The series' first
film, An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012, and its
second and third parts, The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back
Again, hit theaters in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Blanchett was featured
in each installment.
Stage Work and Second Academy Award
Blanchett won another Oscar in
2014, this time for best actress, for her enthralling, not-to-be-missed
performance as a delusional New York socialite in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine (2013). She starred in the film alongside Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin and Annie McNamara. Blanchett again showcased her extraordinary skills
as a thespian, presenting a character inhabiting an artificial world of social
prestige and glamour in an attempt to escape her past.
In 2008, Blanchett and her
husband, screenwriter Andrew Upton, were appointed co-artistic directors of the
Sydney Theater Company, serving in that capacity for several seasons, She also
performed in several productions that included Jean Genet's The Maids,
which appeared at the 2014 Lincoln Center Festival in New York.
After having co-starred in
2014's WWII drama The Monuments Men and the animated feature How to
Train Your Dragon 2, Blanchett once again inhabited an iconic role, this
time as the wicked stepmother in Disney's 2015 non-animated film adaptation of
the fairy tale Cinderella, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Later that year she portrayed 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes in
James Vanderbilt's Truth, co-starring Robert Redford as Dan Rather. The film explores the news program's investigation into President George W. Bush's military service and the resulting fallout after a questionable
on-air report.
Blanchett was also reunited with
director Haynes in another drama for the 2015 season, Carol, in
which she plays a suburban housewife who becomes romantically involved with a
store saleswoman (Rooney Mara).
The project was adapted from a 1952 novel (originally titled The
Price of Salt) by Patricia
Highsmith, the same author who'd penned The Talented Mr. Ripley. Both Blanchett and Mara received Golden
Globe actress nominations, with Carol itself receiving additional nods
in the categories of best drama, direction and score. Both women also received
Academy Award nominations for their work, thus marking Blanchett's seventh
Oscar nod.
Personal Life
Blanchett and Upton have three sons: Dashiell
John (born in 2001), Roman Robert (born in 2004) and Ignatius Martin (born in
2008), with the couple adopting baby girl Edith in early 2015. Blanchett and
Upton met and wed in 1997.
Clancy's comment: Cate always appears to be down-to-earth, and seems to have grace when she is interviewed.
I'm ...
No comments:
Post a Comment