Cate Blanchett covers the latest issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK, where she’s promoting TAR, which will likely get her another major Oscar campaign. I was startled to realize that Cate is 53 years old now – she exists, in the zeitgeist, as someone who is either 42 or 29 and nothing else. She looks amazing though. She’s taken care of her skin, that’s why. Cate and her husband Andrew Upton split their time between Australia and England, although I think the family is primarily based in the English countryside these days. Cate references that in this interview, plus she talks about environmentalism and how she views her career and a lot more:
Environmentalism: “Often, the language around climate change is about sacrifice. But when you go out to the theatre – or to a movie, or an art gallery – and you have an extraordinary time, and you laugh, and you cry, and you’re entertained, and you eat wonderful food, and then you think: ‘Oh my goodness, my carbon footprint was pretty close to neutral,’ that’s beautiful. If you grapple with these things creatively, you can have beautiful but practical solutions that actually benefit us all. It’s not a sacrifice – it’s an opportunity.”
Her phone is constantly beeping with alarms & messages: “This is what my life is like,” she says, laughing at what she calls her ‘early-onset dementia’. “I set alarms all the time. It’s the only way I can remember to do things.”
The actress life: “When I was young, I thought acting was something you did for fun. Maybe I still think that? It wasn’t about building a career; it was doing these random things. Being an actor has staved off the inevitable decision about what I have to do with my life, because I’ve empathetically stepped into various different experiences, whether they’re fantastical or based in the real world. I think I’m probably quite shy, and I find that the best way to get to know people is through making things together. It’s a way of having very active, visceral, engaging conversations with people. It keeps me social.”
On cancel culture: “People often talk about left and right, up and down, right and wrong, good and bad. I don’t think in those terms. Art exists in the grey area. I don’t know the answer to this question, but it’s a conversation that we must have, as artists, as humans, as a society. How do you remain in a robust and brutal relationship with the thing that you are making? You have to have a powerful inner critic, and sometimes that can come out. I have been spoken to in ways that now I could probably go to HR and complain about, but those conversations that were had with me early on in my career made me a better actor. It’s important we speak honestly with one another.”
Domestic life in England: She and Upton have four children, ranging in age from 20-year-old Dashiell, who’s studying film at university in the US, to Edith, still at primary school. “They enjoy a sense of anonymity here, which I’m grateful for,” she says. During lockdown, the Uptons bought a mini electric jeep to amuse the children; when I ask how Blanchett relaxes, she laughs about driving it around the garden with the dogs in the back. The previous afternoon she had donned a linen apron and wandered up to her greenhouse to decant honey, pick apples and cut sunflowers, and was almost late for the school run as a result. “I completely lost track of time. It’s a humbling experience, trying and failing to grow things! But then, when you get seven strawberries, suddenly everyone’s so excited, and you’re like, who wants half a strawberry?”
It’s crazy to think that the great actress of her generation just bums around her mini jeep in her English garden and tries to grow strawberries. That being said, I bet the disconnect is great for her. She’s always been like that, throughout her career too – she dipped out to have babies, went back to work like nothing happened, dipped out to spend more time with her family, and on and on. She’s still so in-demand as an actress too – Bazaar listed all of the stuff she has coming out or that she’ll start working on soon, and she’s got so much going on!
As for this – “I have been spoken to in ways that now I could probably go to HR and complain about, but those conversations that were had with me early on in my career made me a better actor.” The ends don’t justify the means, Cate. Just because you feel stronger and more resilient because you survived some sh-tty stuff doesn’t mean that every woman will survive it? It’s like she’s saying: toughen up, snowflakes. And that’s just… wrong.
Covers courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar UK.
