Interview: Cate Blanchett

Pregnant with child No. 2 and busy promoting the three movies she's in this holiday season, the critically acclaimed actress still remembers to pack "Goodnight Moon" when her son and husband join her on the road.
By Stephanie Mansfield

"There's no handbook for relationships. Love is a powerful thing."

It sounds like a smooth line, but clearly there are lots of people in Hollywood these days who agree.

Suddenly, the name Blanchett is everywhere. She stars in no fewer than two movies this month, "The Missing" and "Veronica Guerin," and in a few weeks she'll be seen in "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" as Galadriel, the elfin queen. The 34-year-old Australian mom, pregnant with her second child, is likely to garner an Academy Award nomination for at least one.

Whether all the attention lifts Blanchett's standing in the States from respected Aussie actress to certified star probably will be determined -- well, now.

"She's already a household name in select households, and serious moviegoers will see a film because she's in it," says People movie critic Leah Rozen. "But she has yet to prove that she can carry a film that has real box-office heft. Maybe "The Missing" will be it."

In six short years, Blanchett has logged an astounding 20 movies. But her sprint to Hollywood has not been conventional. Says Anthony Minghella, who directed Blanchett in "The Talented Mr. Ripley:" "Her compass is not steering her towards a star vehicle; it's steering her towards movies and directors who intrigue her."

When we meet, rainbow-colored plastic toys are strewn on the floor of her Chateau Marmont bungalow, a copy of "Goodnight Moon" is on the cluttered coffee table, and a stroller sits in one corner. She's wearing '40s tweed pants and a fitted jacket, and the fact that she is expecting her second child next spring is undetectable -- until she picks up a KitKat bar and starts munching. "Pregnant, you know," she says. "Need chocolate."

Almost-2-year-old son Dash (after novelist Dashiell Hammett) has just gone to bed. Her husband of 6 1/2 years, the Oxford don-looking screenwriter Andrew Upton, and Blanchett's mother, June, visiting from Australia, also are in residence.

Blanchett calls little Dash "our love baby" and says, "I have the utmost respect for people who do it themselves" -- an apparent reference to single parents. "But our child was born out of a relationship. What makes him secure is we're secure."

Blanchett flashes a wicked grin as she confesses she didn't like her husband when they first met. She thought he was arrogant; he thought she was aloof.

" 'Hate' is too strong, but we didn't get along. Then he kissed me," she says, laughing. "And that was that. Love is a powerful and unique thing." (The laugh is legend among co-workers. Says director Ron Howard, who guided her performance in "The Missing:" "Cate can be very girly, with a big, wonderful laugh.")

The actress' father, a Texas ad man who moved to Melbourne to marry her mother, died when Blanchett was only 10. There are echoes of this loss in "The Missing," in which Tommy Lee Jones, portraying Blanchett's character's father -- who abandoned his family -- suddenly shows up to help rescue her kidnapped daughter.

"Children incorporate loss in a way that allows them to move forward," she says. "Then you get older, going through the land mines in your life, meeting the love of your life. Wouldn't it be nice to have that man reappear? I'm sure I felt that. But any connection one has to a character is always subconscious. And really, the world is much larger than what happens in my small world."

Known as a chameleon-like dramatic actress whom many thought deserved the Best Actress Oscar for her powerful portrayal of the queen in 1998's "Elizabeth" (Gwyneth Paltrow won for "Shakespeare in Love"), Blanchett is equally gifted as a comedian, as evidenced by her zany performance in Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes". Next up is Martin Scorsese's biopic of Howard Hughes, "The Aviator," opposite Leo DiCaprio. This time, she becomes a legend in the form of another slender beauty, Katharine Hepburn.

Blanchett picks up a silver frame. Inside is a black-and-white photograph of Hepburn swinging a golf club, with the other Cate's picture superimposed on the figure. And yes, Blanchett had to learn to play golf for the role. Her clubs are resting in the corner.

"I'm not very good," she confides.

Hard to believe.

Contributing Editor Stephanie Mansfield last wrote about actress Reese Witherspoon. Frappa Stout contributed to this story.

Photo by NIGEL PARRY for USA WEEKEND
Blanchett's top by Sonia Rykiel; ring by Christian Dior Fine Jewelry.