Cate Blanchett saw in the New Year in the Arctic, with her husband and four children, by cutting a hole in the ice and jumping in. It was -30C and she wore a “funny hat” for the cold and, “It was fabulous,” because, she says, “Everything… paused.” It’s February now, and the restaurant near the river is just beginning to fill with evening diners when Blanchett slides between the tables in her tartan “chicken feeding coat” and striped shirt, collar popped. “Who are they murdering out the back?” she shouts – the noise of dough being pounded in the kitchen sounds as if they’re beating somebody to death and means we need to lean in, over her pot of turmeric tea. “I always thought, if the acting thing didn’t work out, which it still might not, I would love to be a Foley artist,” creating sound effects for film, smashing watermelons, clicking cups. “Yes, I can burp to order.” Oh? “Not fart, though. One of my primary school friends, vomiting sounds was her trick. Are you any good at noises?” I attempt, quite sweetly, a generic beatbox. “That sounded slightly like a kangaroo. I’ve been away from Australia a long time, though, so…”
Of course she can burp to order. She is Cate Blanchett, two-time Oscar winner, one of our greatest living actors. This is a person who, at 55, is balancing Hollywood movie stardom and motherhood (her eldest is 23; the youngest, who she and husband Andrew Upton adopted in 2015, nine), while also maintaining the freedom to regularly veer away from the family blockbusters or exquisite thrillers and take a part that is gloriously insane, like a German prime minister set upon by wanking bog-men (Rumours, 2024) or a female spider (Red, 2017) or, following her Oscar nomination for Tár (she remains the most nominated Australian, a feat!), the dancer in a Sparks video (The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, 2023). The women she plays (and, as in her sly portrayal of Bob Dylan, men) are unpredictable, inscrutable and occasionally icy. Which takes us back to the Arctic.
“The only thing keeping me remotely sane at the moment is getting into cold water every day,” Blanchett says. “I get up and get in. Five minutes and it just brings everything back down. Because you have to connect with where you are.” Do you not… feel like you’re dying? “Well, I don’t know what your experience of childbirth was?” We digress, tea is drunk. “You just have to breathe and be there. You can resist that pain or you can surrender to it. And I’ve done it long enough now that I can return to that place during the day. Otherwise, you know, my brain’s like a Pac-Man.” We spend a happy five minutes scrolling through photos on her phone to find the ice hole (huskies, her funny hat, her daughter wrapped in jackets, “A lot of pictures of people doing yoga stretches and making ceramics, sorry,”) until she apologises again, violently. “I mean, what middle-aged person isn’t talking about cold plunging? It is so boring!” In many circumstances I’d agree, but with Blanchett it remains interesting because of the impulse – the thing that leads her to the ice.
“I always think you have to start as you mean to continue. I think that’s true of relationships, friendships, any enterprise. It’s a new day. And I’m just trying to start my day as I mean to continue – connected and open-hearted. That’s what I’m trying to do.” Is it working? “It feels like a monumental challenge at the moment. My job is to connect. And there are a lot of nefarious actors at the moment striving for us to separate ourselves from each other.” She purses her lips. “It’s not my daily protest, but it was a magical holiday. What did you do for New Year’s?” I tell her I made a cake. “Excellent. See? Starting as you mean to continue.”
Blanchett came straight to the restaurant from a rehearsal room. She’s working on a stage production of The Seagull with a cast that includes Tom Burke, who also stars in her new film, Black Bag. The thing about Blanchett, says Burke, is, “She’s not a soloist. Even though she, of course, has the talent, charisma and skill set to be exactly that. She wants to be part of the band.” Black Bag is a spy thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh in which Blanchett and Michael Fassbender play married intelligence agents whose loyalty to each other is tested by a case – the black bag is the suitcase required for a covert job you can’t tell anyone about, even your husband.
In some ways, I suggest, their marriage, with its secrecy built in, is ideal, in that it has the space required to maintain desire. “Yes, it’s all about the things that are not said, which is really interesting to play. I think it’s a fascinating way to look at a marriage now, because it’s meant to be all about honesty, having everything out there. But what does that mean for desire and what does it actually mean for trust, if there are no secrets that you’re prepared to keep?” Blanchett has been married to Upton, a playwright, since 1997. They’ve worked together, too, running the Sydney Theatre Company at home in Australia – now they live on a 100-acre farm in Sussex that the Daily Mail calls “Blanchettville”. What did this film teach her about relationships? “Every marriage is different, but the ones that last are based on a profound trust and, I think, not having a stranglehold over your partner. Or an expectation, really, that you can ever truly know one another.”
As she dithers about perhaps ordering some cauliflower (“I love a cauliflower. I can’t grow it, though. We’ve got problems with moths that eat our broccoli but, oh well, they were there first”), I admit I was nervous about our meeting. In previous interviews she has shown resistance. There is a moment when Blanchett typically sighs, or declares her lack of interest in talking about herself, or her characters, or her “craft”. “Ah yes,” she says. “We could make this very short.” She rearranges her shirt collar, which emerges rakishly from a red jumper. “I’d much rather listen than talk. Some people come to life in these environments, being able to articulate the ‘why’ of what they do. But I find it a little bit like the question, ‘Why do you love your partner?’ It’s really difficult to say, particularly after a long time, because you’re so entwined and meshed, and it’s like an organism that keeps evolving. It’s hard to pin down.” Why does she love her partner? “On Tuesday it might be his beard and on Wednesday it might be the way he eats cherries. And it’s interesting, some relationships which you think are incredible and full of passion, you realise, oh, they’re actually competing with one another. Or they need the partner to be something in relief of themselves, rather than being their own entity.” She and Upton both do the cold plunges every morning, “before going off into our separate little worlds,” but no more swimming talk, boring, sorry.
In her role as a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Blanchett recently announced a new grant scheme for refugee filmmakers, offering up to €100,000 each to five people creating work about the experiences of displaced people. “When I began working with them, the number of people who were displaced around the world was approaching 60 million, now it’s over 120 million. And a vast majority of those are children, which, as a mother of four…” she shudders. “I do feel there’s an obvious intersection between what’s going on with our climate, our collective climate, and displacement. It’s not going away.” So these filmmakers’ perspectives, “are important to break down the preconceptions we have about individuals who are displaced, the false and dehumanising narratives that are out there.” Does she feel a responsibility, having a profile, to take action? It’s simpler than that, she tuts. “The more generationally, culturally and, from a gender point of view, diverse any room of any industry in any walk of life is, the more fascinating the conversation is going to be.” She shrugs.
What’s her relationship with the news? Is she compulsively scrolling? “I think sometimes by ‘switching off’ you can switch on? I’m trying to take a leaf out of my husband’s book – he’s not bound up in that 24-hour news cycle addiction where we keep swiping because we hope that these horrific situations will somehow change. So sometimes I think by disconnecting you can reconnect in a different way. You hear the dog-whistle side of things and see the longer arc of the narrative – I hope there is a longer arc.” She gulps her turmeric tea. “Knowledge has different rhythms. And wisdom and perspective isn’t always gained by being caught up in the drama. Being knowledgable of the events and their repercussions and the consequences is important, but The white noise can be very distracting.”
Her head to the side, she asks what it’s like digesting news in order to write a weekly column, and I admit I forget everything the second it goes to press. “Oh, that’s interesting because I have the opposite thing. Once I’ve put something to bed, I have this profound realisation – I see the train receding and I think, now I know I was sitting in the wrong seat. That’s why theatre’s more natural to me, in that you can get up every night and re-offend and hopefully repair what you did the night before or go deeper. And until someone stops you at the bus stop you don’t know if anybody’s even seen a film.” There used to be box-office receipts, she remembers, “but now it’s ‘eyeballs’.” I was shocked to read about how streamers were commissioning “second screen” content – films that won’t distract viewers from their phones. “Yeah, it’s a little bit soul-destroying as an actor when you’re just a narrative delivery device.” How is she feeling about art and AI? “It’s very difficult to know at the moment where to put one’s energy. We’re in a transitional phase of something I hope is not going to be cataclysmic and horrific. I would have hoped that they, at this point in human history, would have developed enough wisdom to know these things have to serve the common good, not just line an individual’s pockets. But you have to be… there’s no option but to be… hopeful?” What does hope look like, for her?
“My hope has to have an engaged, active quality to it. I don’t think it’s a time to be passive, but it is a time to really deeply listen to what is behind what’s being said, what is behind people’s fear, behind people’s aspirations.” She flutters her fingers around her face. “I think there is an urge for people to gather. That may be around a screen watching a film or protesting, but people want to be in groups, and you hope that those groups are communities and not tribes.” What does she see as the main difference between the two? “Tribalism has an aggression that is so destructive and I think communities are about finding points of connection with people.” She looks at me sharply, catching herself. “I don’t want to sound too pompous or sentimental, but – breaking bread together or playing sport together or going to a movie together, we don’t have to have the same political views, or sexual orientation or the same culture, but there’s an urge to find pleasure in life and to not rid other people of their ability to seek that.”
In 2018, Blanchett spoke out about Harvey Weinstein, with whom she’d worked on films such as Carol and The Aviator, and this year talked about her “distress” at how the #MeToo movement “didn’t really ever take root”. It’s the responsibility of those in “public-facing industries,” she says today, to continue the conversation. “When you talk about equity and inclusion, that means the people who’ve had all the toys need to share. They’ve got used to that being normal. And so you have to be very vocal in order to rebalance it.”
What happened with #MeToo? “Well, the conversation had just begun and suddenly everything was being discredited and undermined, so we’re still having to fight for those same basic conversations.” Sometimes it feels as though we’ve gone backwards. “Definitely.” And where did the industry’s equal-pay discussions land? “We’re nowhere near equal pay! Talking about it noisily doesn’t mean action has happened. I mean, there’s a greater concentration of wealth than perhaps there ever has been in human history. And we can see where that’s got us.” I wait, but she doesn’t elaborate. Is she wary, I wonder, of talking directly about politics? She pauses.
“I think a lot of human issues have been politicised.” Carefully, she continues. “And the problem is that everything is so fragile at the moment, so we really have to be very judicious and targeted about where and when and to whom things get said, because so much is at stake. And somehow often a throwaway comment gets picked up and suddenly it becomes a mission statement. And what does that add to the action?” She flutters, apologetically. “ Maybe I am wary, but not because of personal repercussions. I’m a big girl. It’s more that I think there’s so much at stake.” Plus, she reminds me, chuckling, “We’re here to talk about a spy movie! I’m trying to keep it in context!”
As she’s talking, I’m reminded of a dress she wore last year at Cannes – it appeared to be a simple black gown, but when she lifted the white hem to reveal a green silk lining against the red carpet she suddenly became the Palestinian flag. At the time she neither confirmed or denied the intention. “I don’t know that talking about any dress that one wore could have done or will do anything to affect what is going on in Gaza,” she laughs, darkly. “But I think the lack of listening to people’s point of view and how quickly toxic that conversation became was heartbreaking.” She waits, serene now, for another question.
Do Blanchett’s characters stay with her? “There’s a weird thing that happens particularly when you’re…” She has extracted from her bag a small medical pot of gel and is rubbing it into her cuticles. “I had to wear these fake nails and… sorry, this is really inappropriate. I’ve got my bunion separator in my bag as well. I won’t open that up. Do you want some?” We briefly, happily, massage our hands. “It’s not necessarily that the characters stay with you, but it’s a little bit like being in a new relationship, in that through the prism of the dialogue and the fabulous sex you’re having with that partner, the world seems suddenly different. It depends on if it’s all-consuming, like [Lydia] Tár or Blanche DuBois, then it does affect your dream life, too. But the best antidote to that, I think, is having four children.” Are they interested in her work? “Well,” she says evenly, “I love talking to my kids. The three boys have got this language they speak between one another that’s kind of beautiful and impenetrable. But they’re constantly dismissing me.” Oh dear. “Yeah, fast-track humility going on – I’m constantly lampooned and discredited.” In what way? “I’m an irrelevance around the kitchen table, in a great way. Everyone’s an equal player, but sometimes my husband and I are less equal than the rest of them. They’re quite a force.” She packs away her gel.
She’s mentioned the idea of giving up acting more than once. “Yes I had a fantasy about getting on the train to Paris and not showing up in rehearsal today. That was my 3am dance. But I think I had to have that dance.” What was that? Nerves? “Nerves and fear of letting people down and not being able to give what, in the architecture of the thing, you need to reach. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t and irrespective, you have to show up.” Is that fantasy also about the life not lived? “Yes, possibly Dr Freud. And I’ve had a delightful avoidance of that by, I suppose, temporarily stepping into other people’s lives. But one day I’m going to grow up and get a proper job.” Foley! The chef is no longer pounding. “Foley!” Her press director is hovering, waiting to accompany her to a screening. I applaud her energy, as well as everything else, including the ice baths. “I get four hours’ sleep each night,” she grimaces. “So I’ll die soon. You heard it here first!”
Black Bag is in cinemas on 14 March
Fashion editor Jo Jones; hair by Nicola Clarke at Nicola Clarke Colour Salon and using Sam McKnight Products; makeup by Mary Greenwell at Premier Hair & Makeup using Armani Beauty; fashion assistant Sam Deaman; photography assistants Ethan Humphries and Klaudija Avotina
