Cate Blanchett Biography, Movies, Husband, Kids, Broadway

Cate Blanchett Biography

Cate Blanchett (Catherine Elise Blanchett) is an Australian actress and theatre director born on 14th May 1969 in Ivanhoe, Australia.  She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,for portraying Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 drama The Aviator, making her the only actor to win an Oscar for portraying another Oscar-winning actor.

Her mother June (born Gamble) is Australian and worked as a property developer and teacher, and her American father, Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., a Texas native, was a United States Navy petty officer who later worked as an advertising executive. When Cate was 10 her father died of a heart attack, leaving her mother to raise the family on her own. She has two siblings, her older brother is a computer systems engineer, and her younger sister is a theatrical designer.

Cate Blanchett Education Background

She attended primary school in Melbourne at Ivanhoe East Primary School; for her secondary education, she attended Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School and then Methodist Ladies’ College, where she explored her passion for the performing arts. In her late teens and early twenties, she worked at a nursing home in Victoria. She studied economics and fine arts at the University of Melbourne but dropped out after one year to travel overseas. While in Egypt, Blanchett was asked to play an American cheerleader, as an extra in the Egyptian boxing movie, Kaboria; in need of money, she accepted. Upon her return to Australia, she moved to Sydney and enrolled in the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) to pursue an acting career. She graduated from NIDA in 1992

Cate Blanchett Career

Cate Blanchett first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush, in the 1992 David Mamet play Oleanna for the Sydney Theatre Company. That year, she was also cast as Clytemnestra in a production of Sophocles’ Electra. A couple of weeks after rehearsals, the actress playing the title role pulled out and director Lindy Davies cast Cate Blanchett in the role. Her performance as Electra became one of her most acclaimed at NIDA. In 1993, Cate Blanchett was awarded the Sydney Theatre Critics’ Best Newcomer Award for her performance in Timothy Daly’s Kafka Dances and won Best Actress for her performance in Mamet’s Oleanna, making her the first actor to win both categories in the same year.

Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett played the role of Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994–95 Company B production of Hamlet directed by Neil Armfield, starring Rush and Richard Roxburgh, and was nominated for a Green Room Award. She appeared in the 1994 TV miniseries Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo, the miniseries Bordertown (1995) with Hugo Weaving, and in an episode of Police Rescue entitled “The Loaded Boy”. She also appeared in the 50-minute drama short Parklands (1996), which received an Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Cate Blanchett made her feature film debut with a supporting role as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese Army during World War II, in Bruce Beresford’s film Paradise Road (1997), which co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. Her first leading role was as Lucinda Leplastrier in Gillian Armstrong’s romantic drama Oscar and Lucinda (1997), opposite Ralph Fiennes. Blanchett received wide acclaim for her performance and earned her first AFI Award nomination as Best Leading Actress; she lost to Deborah Mailman in Radiance (1998). She won the AFI Best Actress Award in the same year for her role as Lizzie in the romantic comedy Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997), co-starring Richard Roxburgh and Frances O’Connor. By 1997, Blanchett had accrued significant praise and recognition in her native Australia.

Cate Blanchett first high-profile international role was as Elizabeth I of England in the critically acclaimed film Elizabeth (1998) which earned her the Golden Globe Award and British Academy Award (BAFTA), her first Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The following year, Blanchett appeared in Bangers (1999), an Australian short film part of Stories of Lost Souls, a compilation of thematically-related short stories.

In 2001 Cate Blanchett played Galadriel  in the ‘The Lord of the Rings’. The trilogy holds the record as the highest-grossing film trilogy of all time. In 2002, Cate Blanchett appeared, opposite Giovanni Ribisi, in Tom Tykwer-directed Heaven, the first film in an unfinished trilogy by acclaimed writer-director Krzysztof Kieślowski.

In 2003 Cate Blanchetta played a wide range of roles; Galadriel in the third and final installment of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), the Ron Howard-directed western-thriller The Missing, Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes — playing two roles (both against herself) — for which she received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination, and the biographical film Veronica Guerin, which earned her a Golden Globe Best Actress Drama nomination.

In 2005, Cate Blanchett won her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her acclaimed portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. This made Blanchett the first actor to garner an Academy Award for playing an Oscar-winning actor. She lent her Oscar statue to The Australian Centre for the Moving Image. That year, Blanchett won the Australian Film Institute Best Actress Award for her role as Tracy Heart, a former heroin addict, in the Australian film Little Fish, co-produced by her and her husband’s production company, Dirty Films. Though lesser known globally than some of her other films, Little Fish received great critical acclaim in Blanchett’s native Australia and was nominated for 13 Australian Film Institute awards.

In 2006, Cate Blanchett starred opposite Brad Pitt in the multi-lingual, multi-narrative ensemble drama Babel, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, which received seven Academy Award nominations, the Steven Soderbergh-directed The Good German with George Clooney and the acclaimed Notes on a Scandal opposite Dame Judi Dench. Blanchett received a third Academy Award nomination for her performance in the latter film.

In 2007, Cate Blanchett was named as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and also one of the most successful actresses by Forbes magazine. Cate Blanchett had a cameo as Janine, forensic scientist and ex-girlfriend of Simon Pegg’s character in Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz (2007). The cameo was uncredited and she gave her fee to charity.

Cate Blanchett replaced her role as Queen Elizabeth I in the 2007 sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age and portrayed Jude Quinn, one of six incarnations of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’ experimental film I’m Not There. She won the Volpi Cup Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival (accepted by fellow Australian actor and I’m Not There co-star Heath Ledger), the Independent Spirit and Golden Globe Best Supporting Actress Award for her portrayal of Jude Quinn. At the 80th Academy Awards, Cate Blanchettreceived two Academy Award nominations—Best Actress for Elizabeth: the Golden Age and Best Supporting Actress for I’m Not There—becoming the eleventh actor to receive two acting nominations in the same year and the first female actor to receive another nomination for the reprisal of a role.

On 5 December 2008, Cate Blanchett was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in front of Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. Blanchett voiced the character of Granmamare for the English version of the film Ponyo, released July 2008. In 2008, Cate Blanchett and her husband became co-CEOs and artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company.

Cate Blanchett repriced her role as Galadriel in Peter Jackson’s adaptations of The Hobbit (2012–14), prequel to The Lord of the Rings series, filmed in New Zealand. She voiced the role of “Penelope” in the Family Guy episode “Mr. and Mrs. Stewie”, which aired on 29 April 2012, and Queen Elizabeth II in the episode “Family Guy Viewer Mail 2”. Cate Blanchettt returned to Australian film with her appearance in The Turning (2013), an anthology film based on a collection of short stories by Tim Winton. She was head of jury of the 2012 and 2013 Dubai International Film Festival. The Sydney Theatre Company’s 2013 season was Blanchett’s final one as co-CEO and artistic director.

In 2013, Cate Blanchett played Jasmine French, the lead role in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, costarring Alec Baldwin and Sally Hawkins.  The performance earned her more than 40 industry and critics awards, including LAFCA Award, NYFCC Award, NSFC Award, Critics’ Choice Award, Santa Barbara International Film Festival Outstanding Performance of the Year Award, Australian Academy Award (AACTA), SAG award, Golden Globe award, BAFTA award, Independent Film Spirit Award and the Academy Award for Best Actress. Cate Blanchett win made her just the sixth actress to win an Oscar in both of the acting categories, the third to win Best Actress after Best Supporting Actress, and the first Australian to win more than one acting Oscar.

In 2014, Cate Blanchett co-starred with Matt Damon and George Clooney in the latter’s film, The Monuments Men, based on the true story of a crew of art historians and museum curators who recover renowned works of art stolen by Nazis. The film featured an ensemble cast, including John Goodman, Bill Murray, Hugh Bonneville, and Jean Dujardin. She voiced the part of Valka in 2014’s How to Train Your Dragon 2. The animated film was a critically acclaimed, box-office success, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and received an Academy Award nomination. Cate Blanchett guest starred on the Australian show Rake, as the onscreen female version of Richard Roxburgh’s rogue protagonist, Cleaver.

In 2015, Cate Blanchett starred in five films. She portrayed Nancy in Terrence Malick’s Knight Of Cups, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. Cate Blanchett then portrayed Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s evil stepmother, in Disney’s live-action re-imagining of Charles Perrault’s Cinderella and the 1950 animated film, to critical acclaim. She starred opposite Rooney Mara in Carol, the film adaption of Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, reuniting her with director Todd Haynes. Blanchett is an executive producer on the film.

Cate Blanchett received Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award nominations for her performance in Carol. She also portrayed Mary Mapes opposite Robert Redford’s Dan Rather in Truth, a film about the Killian documents controversy. Blanchett’s production company was a producing partner for the film. Blanchett also appeared in Manifesto, Julian Rosefeldt’s multi-screen video installation, in which 12 artist manifestos are depicted by 13 different characters played by Blanchett. In 2016, Blanchett narrated one of two versions of Terence Malick’s documentary on Earth and the universe, Voyage of Time, which had its world premiere at the 73rd Venice Film Festival.

Cate Blanchett Broadway

In 2017 Cate Blanchett made a broadway debut in ‘The Present’, a new adaptation of Chekhov play. The play opened on January 8, 2017. The play was written by Andrew Uptron. Cate Blanchett plays a Russian widow who is turning 40 and worried about how to hang on to her home. The play’s action centers on a wild birthday party at which the character’s friends and family have gathered.

Cate Blanchett Awards and achievements

Among her numerous accolades for her performances, Blanchett has received two Academy Awards, three British Academy Awards, six Australian Academy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three Critics Choice Awards, three Independent Spirit Awards, four Helpmann Awards, awards from the Venice Film Festival, the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review. Her performance as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator made her the only actor to win an Oscar for portraying another Oscar-winning actor.

Cate Blanchett is only the third actress after Jessica Lange and Meryl Streep to win Best Actress after winning Best Supporting Actress. She is one of only six actors (and the only actress) in the history of the Oscars to be nominated twice for portraying the same role in two films (Elizabeth I in the films Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and the eleventh actor to receive two acting nominations in the same year. She is also the only Australian actor to win two acting Oscars.

Cate Blanchett received Premiere magazine’s Icon Award in 2006. In 2008, she received the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Modern Master Award in recognition of her accomplishments in the film industry. That year, she received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, inducted at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard. She received Women in Film and Television International’s Crystal Award for excellence in the entertainment industry in 2014.

In 2015, Cate Blanchett was honoured at the Museum of Modern Art’s Film Benefit for her outstanding contributions to the industry. She received the British Film Institute Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding contribution to film, presented to her by fellow actor Ian McKellen. Blanchett was the recipient of the AACTA Longford Lyell Award for her “outstanding contribution to the enrichment of Australia’s screen environment and culture.” In 2016, she received the Costume Designers Guild Lacoste Spotlight Award, in honour of an “enduring commitment to excellence” and her “appreciation for the artistry of costume design and collaboration with the Costume Designers.”

In 2006, a portrait of Blanchett and family painted by McLean Edwards was a finalist for the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ Archibald Prize. Another portrait of Blanchett was a finalist for the Archibald Prize in 2014. In 2009, Cate Blanchett appeared in a series of commemorative postage stamps called Australian Legends, in recognition of the outstanding contribution made to Australian entertainment and culture. In 2015, Madame Tussauds unveiled a wax figure of Cate Blanchett draped in a recreation of the Valentino Garavani dress she wore to the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony.

Cate Blanchett was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture in 2012, in recognition of her significant contributions to the arts. Cate Blanchett was awarded the Centenary Medal for Service to Australian Society by the Australian government. Cate Blanchett has been presented with a Doctor of Letters from University of Sydney, University of New South Wales and Macquarie University, in recognition of her extraordinary contribution to the arts, philanthropy and the community.

Cate Blanchett Movies

• 1996: Parklands as Rosie
• 1997: Paradise Road as Susan Macarthy
• 1997: Thank God He Met Lizzie as Lizzie
• 1997: Oscar and Lucinda as Lucinda Leplastrier
• 1998: Elizabeth as Queen Elizabeth I
• 1999: An Ideal Husband as Lady Gertrude Chiltern
• 1999: Bangers as Julie-Anne
• 1999: Pushing Tin as Connie Falzone
• 1999: The Talented Mr. Ripley as Meredith Logue
• 2000: The Gift as Annabelle “Annie” Wilson
• 2000: The Man Who Cried as Lola
• 2001: The Shipping News as Petal Quoyle
• 2001: Charlotte Gray as Charlotte Gray
• 2001: Bandits as Kate Wheeler
• 2001: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as Galadriel
• 2002: Heaven as Philippa
• 2002: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as Galadriel
• 2003: Veronica Guerin as Veronica Guerin
• 2003: The Missing as Magdalena “Maggie” Gilkeson
• 2003: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as Galadriel
• 2004: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou as Jane Winslett-Richardson
• 2004: The Aviator as Katharine Hepburn
• 2005: Little Fish as Tracy Heart
• 2006: Babel as Susan Jones
• 2006: The Good German as Lena Brandt
• 2006: Notes on a Scandal as Sheba Hart
• 2007: Hot Fuzz as Janine
• 2007: Elizabeth: The Golden Age as Queen Elizabeth I
• 2007: I’m Not There as Jude Quinn (Bob Dylan)
• 2008: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as Irina Spalko
• 2008: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as Daisy Fuller
• 2009: Ponyo as Granmamare
• 2010: Robin Hood as Lady Marian
• 2011: Hanna as Marissa Wiegler
• 2012: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey as Galadriel
• 2013: Girl Rising as Narrator
• 2013: Blue Jasmine as Jasmine French
• 2013: The Turning as Gail Lang
• 2013: The Galapagos Affair as Dore Strauch
• 2013: Journey to the South Pacific as Narrator
• 2013: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug as Galadriel
• 2014: The Monuments Men as Claire Simone
• 2014: How to Train Your Dragon 2 as Valka
• 2014: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies as Galadriel
• 2015: Knight of Cups as Nancy
• 2015: Cinderella as Lady Tremaine
• 2015: Carol as Carol Aird
• 2015: Truth as Mary Mapes
• 2015: Manifesto
• 2016: Voyage of Time as Narrator
• 2017: Song to Song as Amanda
• 2017: Thor: Ragnarok as Hela
• 1993: Police Rescue as Mrs. Haines
• 1994: Heartland as Elizabeth Ashton
• 1995: Bordertown as Bianca
• 2012: Family Guy as Penelope
• 2012: Family Guy as Queen Elizabeth
• 2014: Rake as Clarice Greene

Cate Blanchett Theatre

• 1992: Electra as Electra
• 1992: Top Girls as Patient Griselda/Nell/Jeanine
• 1993: Kafka Dances as Bride/Felice
• 1993: Oleanna as Carol
• 1994: Hamlet as Ophelia
• 1995: Sweet Phoebe as Helen
• 1995: The Tempest as Miranda
• 1995: The Blind Giant is Dancing as Rose Draper
• 1997: The Seagull as Nina
• 1999: Plenty as Susan Traherne
• 1999: The Vagina Monologues
• 2004: Hedda Gabler as Hedda Gabler
• 2006: A Kind of Alaska as Sydney Theatre Company
• 2007: Blackbird as Sydney Theatre Company
• 2009: The War of the Roses as Richard II/Lady Anne
• 2009: A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche DuBois
• 2011: Uncle Vanya as Yelena
• 2011: Gross und Klein as Lotte
• 2013: The Maids as Claire
• 2015: The Present as Anna Petrovna

Cate Blanchett Husband

Cate Blanchett is married to Andrew Upton, a playwright and screenwriter. They met in 1996 on the set of a TV show and were married on 29 December 1997. Blanchett and Upton have three sons and one adopted daughter. Cate Blanchett said that she and her husband had been wanting to adopt ever since the birth of their first child.

Cate Blanchett Kids

Cate Blanchett has four kids, three sons and an adopted daughter; Edith Vivian Patricia Upton, Dashiell John Upton, Roman Robert Upton and Ignatius Martin Upton

Cate Blanchett Video