Cate Blanchett, fluidity and fanlistings?
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Elise Blanchett was born May 14th 1969 in Ivanhoe, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Her parents were Robert Blanchett (originally from Texas, US - an advertising executive and former Naval officer) and June Blanchett (Australian property developer and teacher). She has an older brother Bob Blanchett (computer programmer) and younger sister Genevieve Blanchett (theatre designer). Their father died in 1979 of a heart attack at work.
Her husband Andrew Upton is screenwriter and film editor. They have three children: Dashiell John Upton (b. 2001), Roman Robert Upton (b. 2004) and Ignatius Martin Upton (b. 2008). They met during the production of the play The Seagull in 1997 and married the same year. Cate has said of their first meeting:
"He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant."
"It just shows you how wrong you can be, but once he kissed me that was that."
Cate attended the Ivanhoe East Primary School and the Methodist Ladies' College in Melbourne, Australia where she was the School Drama Captain. She then studied economics and fine art at the University of Melbourne before graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia in 1992. She began her career on stage, acting opposite names such as Geoffrey Rush and appearing in plays such as Oleanna, Hamlet and the Tempest. Among her first important movies are Paradise Road and Oscar and Lucinda - her breakthrough to international fame came with Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth. Since then she has done an impressive range of roles from big blockbusters to small art films, playing everything from a frustatrated housewife to elven royalty and from Katharine Hepburn to Bob Dylan.
Cate has always kept a firm connection to the theatre community, appearing in many plays from Hedda Gabler to The Vagina Monologues. Currently, Cate and her husband have 3-year contracts as artistic co-directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. One of their goals is to eco-renovate the Theatre Company building self-sufficient, making it the first green theatre company in the world.
Among Cate's numerous awards are an Oscar, two BAFTAs, two SAGs, two AFI Awards and two Golden Globes. She also made history by being the first person ever to win the Sydney Theatre Critic's Circle Theatre award for both Best Newcomer (for her role in Kafka Dances), and for Best Lead Actress (for her role in Oleanna) in the same year.
fluidity
According to an article in The New Yorker 02/12/2007, fluidity is Cate's favourite word. It is also a word that one of her directors, Shekhar Kapur uses about her in that same interview:
"Cate is willing to throw herself into a chaotic state out of which something will arise," the director Shekhar Kapur told me. "The fluidity you get in Cate is also because of the contradictions inside her." Blanchett is both candid and private, gregarious and solitary, self-doubting and daring, witty and melancholy. It was these contradictions that prompted Kapur to cast her as Elizabeth I, in "Elizabeth," one of the films that made Blanchett an international star. "I was looking for somebody who could portray not only a reality but an ethereal quality," he said. "This ability to be both vulnerable and totally ruthless. Cate's absolute ruthlessness is with herself, an obsessive ruthlessness about her craft."
fanlistings
The purpose of a fanlisting is to bring together the fans of a certain subject from all around the world and build a list of them. Fanlistings are monitored by and listed at theFanlistings.org network. Joining is free and you don't have to have a website. It's just a way of showing your support and love. :)
This fanlisting was originally run by Heini who opened it in February 2nd 2003. I am forever thankful to her for letting me adopt this little shrine for Cate and her fans.
awards
These are the awards this fanlisting has previously won that Heini forwarded to me.
