January
27
Santa Barbara Film Fest: Cate Blanchett Modern Master
The picture of a beautiful pregnant woman, Cate Blanchett graciously submitted to the Santa Barbara red carpet treatment Saturday night, answering Leonard Maltin's gentle questions and accepting the Fest's Modern Master Award from I'm Not There director Todd Haynes. She thanked her fellow Aussies Judy Davis, Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths and Russell Crowe. And she offered a "special tribute to Heath Ledger, who was well on his way to being a master."
"I get to be a jack of all trades and master of none," she told Maltin.
After a thorough grounding in Sydney and London theater, where Blanchett has played Ophelia in Hamlet and starred in David Mamet's Oleanna, among other roles, Blanchett took on her first film part at age 26. It's hard to believe she's only been working in film for 11 years. She is now working on her third child with theater and film writer-director Andrew Upton; her others are age three and six. "There's no time to hang on to anything," she said. "Making a baby is quite fun."
The difference between shooting the first Elizabeth and the second was "age," she said. "I'm more mature." She remembered watching Ralph Fiennes on Oscar and Lucinda just "switch it on and off." Now she can do that too. She defends her right to do small roles in many movies, which she enjoys, as well as taking advantage of all the chances for travel that her work offers her. If Peter Jackson was asking her to star in a movie, that was all she needed to know.
When Maltin said it was hard to believe she was a woman as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, she responded, "It was the sock in my pants."
In Steven Spielberg's Indy 4, she enjoyed playing agent Irina Spalko, a Russian "baddie," she says. Walking onto the set of the familiar Indy universe with Spielberg setting up a shot was like "a Zelig moment for me," she said. "He's one of the most energized people I've ever met in my life," she said. "He has a childlike fascination with storytelling. He's still bewitched by actors." It's easy to see why.
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