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Cate Blanchett nominations & magazine features

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/15/cate-blanchett-nominations-magazine-features/

Cate Blanchett nominations & magazine features

Hi, everyone!

Here is another post with some nominations and a win Cate Blanchett received for TÁR. Cate covers the annual edition of Crescendo, a German magazine on classical music, with an exclusive interview. The movie will be released in Germany on February 23, 2023. She is also feature on the Christmas 2022 issue of Total Film.

Emese Virág, who was Cate’s piano teacher, talked about her experience working with Cate to prepare for TÁR. She also shared a photo with Cate which you can check below. TÁR will be released in Hungary on February 26, 2023.

BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett, TAR pic.twitter.com/OraF5yvq0z

— Chicago Film Critics (@chicagocritics) December 15, 2022

#TÁR is nominated for seven @CriticsChoice Awards, including BEST PICTURE. pic.twitter.com/F1tc4EmvBI

— TÁR (@tarmovie) December 14, 2022

Women Film Critics Circle – Best Actress

Florida Film Critics Circle – Best Actress, Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actress (Nina Hoss)

The magazine is out now and you can order here.

Total Film – Christmas 2022Below is a Google translated interview from Hungarian to English. Original source is linked at the end of this post.

Cate Blanchett learned to play the piano from a Hungarian artist, Emese Virág

Emese Virág and Cate Blanchett

TÁR presented at the Venice Film Festival, in which the film star plays Lydia Tár, a composer-conductor at the peak of her career, was largely shot in Germany, but one of the instructors at the Liszt Academy of Music played a huge role in helping Cate Blanchett prepare perfectly for the role. The actress learned to play the piano last spring from Liszt Prize winner Emese Virág, a teacher at the Academy of Music, while she was filming another film in Budapest. The movie star was a student of the Hungarian pianist for three months.

“She started shooting the film Borderlands in April, but she already knew that the work on the movie [TÁR ] would begin at the end of the summer. Before coming here, she had already worked with a conductor, whom she asked if she knew someone in Hungary who could play the piano and teach, who had practice and could prepare her. The conductor asked my friend Gyula Rab for a recommendation for this task, who said my name, so we started working together.” began Emese Virág, who was honestly surprised by the attitude of the Australian star, into the joint story with Cate Blanchett.

“Her diligence and perseverance are enormous, she doesn’t have it so much that it’s impossible. She also worked hard, she demanded work from herself. Very often she got up at five in the morning, filmed until seven in the evening, then came to my piano lessons.” recalled the Hungarian artist, who worked hard for Cate Blanchett, who specifically rewarded her for this.

“She had to be believable in this role, and that is why I put a lot of emphasis not only on the parts that are spoken in the film, but also on the movement. She was an absolute partner, she threw herself into work with such enthusiasm that I would set an example for everyone.”

Emese also told us about how direct and kind a person Blanchett is, who at the beginning of the joint work presented Emese’s brilliant craftsmanship, repeatedly playing for her how she imagines the character of Lydia Tár in the scene in which she deals with a little cellist girl, giving her musical instructions on the piano.

“She is a very nice person, she does not like to be treated like a star, she is extremely direct and we had a lot of good laughs with each other. It wasn’t easy for her, since she was away from her family, because of the pandemic she couldn’t even travel home much, but her eldest son was here with her. A friendship developed between us, and what I really liked was that she was interested in Hungarian musical culture, and although the lessons took place in the hotel, she also came here to the Academy of Music once, we walked around the entire building, she was very curious about everything.” said the pianist, who at the end of working together received a touching gift from the actress.

“She gave me this small sculpture depicting clasped hands, and I gave her a well-known Zsolnay motif, porcelain in the shape of a ginkgo biloba leaf, because she really liked the story that the Zsolnay spheres in the Academy of Music building bring good luck.” laughed Emese Virág, whose working together with Cate Blanchett remains an experience of a lifetime.

Source: Blikk

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Cate Blanchett's 12th Golden Globes Nomination & Pinocchio BTS

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/12/cate-blanchetts-12th-golden-globes-nomination-pinocchio-bts/

Cate Blanchett's 12th Golden Globes Nomination & Pinocchio BTS

Cate Blanchett received her 12th Golden Globe nomination today for her tour de force performance in TÁR. She previously won Best Actress for Blue Jasmine and Elizabeth, Best Supporting Actress for I’m Not There. Her last nomination is for Best Actress – Limited Series, Anthology Series or Television Motion Picture for Mrs. America which is her first nomination in the TV category. Her last nomination in the film category is for Where’d You Go Bernadette, Best Actress – Motion Picture – Musical/Comedy.

TÁR also received nomination in Best Motion Picture – Drama category while Todd Field is nominated for Best Screenplay.

Cate also received nominations from Chicago Film Critics Association and Phoenix Critics Circle while she wins at Washington DC Film Critics Association Awards and runner-up at Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards.

80th Golden Globes – Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Nominees

80th Golden Globes – Best Motion Picture – Drama Nominees

2022 WAFCA AWARD WINNER: Best Actress: Cate Blanchett (TÁR)https://t.co/5LT5WMW1h9 #WAFCA #WAFCA2022 pic.twitter.com/g5o1OKq9ag

— WAFCA (@WAFCA) December 12, 2022

Chicago Film Critics Association – Best Actress, Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing

 Phoenix Critics Circle – Best Actress, Best Picture, Director, Screenplay

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A post shared by Morag Ross (@morag_ross_makeup_artist)

TÁR topped Indiewire Critics Poll

With 165 critics and journalists voting on the best films and performances in this year’s survey, Todd Field’s “TÁR” stormed the #1 spot in several categories with the urgency of a mad conductor knocking a rival off her podium.

The movie topped the categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Performance, and Best Screenplay. It appeared on over 45% of all ballots, with 26 first-place rankings for Best Film. It also placed at No. 2 on IndieWire’s own staff list of The Best Movies of 2022.

BEST FILM 1. “TÁR” 2. “Aftersun” 3. “The Banshees of Inisherin” 4. “Everything Everywhere All At Once” 5. “The Fabelmans” 6. “Decision to Leave” 7. “Nope” 8. “RRR” 9. “Top Gun: Maverick” 10. “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”

BEST PERFORMANCE 1. Cate Blanchett, “TÁR” 2. Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin” 3. Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” 4. Danielle Deadwyler, “Till” 5. Park Ji-Min, “Return to Seoul” 6. Brendan Fraser, “The Whale” 7. Tilda Swinton, “The Eternal Daughter” 8. Paul Mescal, “Aftersun” 9. Mia Goth, “Pearl” 10. TIE: Guslagie Malanda, “Saint Omer,”; Austin Butler, “Elvis”; Léa Seydoux, “One Fine Morning”

Cate Blanchett Pen Tributes to Hildur Gudnadóttir

It’s been a big year for Hildur Gudnadóttir: She undertook multiple live engagements as a cellist, created a lavish emotional score for the heartbreaking Women Talking and threw herself into the shape-shifting reinventions of what scoring a film even means for Todd Field’s riveting Tár. This particular and intense collaboration grew further, resulting in a subsequent concept album drawn from the film itself, which rocketed to No. 1 on the classical music charts.

The indefatigable Hildur is a rock star, a sprite and one of the most gifted and humble collaborators with whom I have ever had the good fortune to be in the same room. The emotional focus and intensity of her distinctive music is constantly overturned by her infectious quicksilver laugh and easy lightness of touch, coupled with her uncanny ability to hear and express the unsayable.

And like all great artists, she is constantly sidestepping the expected. After her undeniable, inherently masculine, Oscar-winning score for The Joker, she dived deep into two very female-centered narratives, embracing each distinct directorial vision, creating two wildly different scores. Delicacy is perhaps the most difficult quality to achieve when scoring for any story riven with so many layers of conflict. And Tár is just such a story.

Like every cinematic element in Todd Field’s surprising film, Hildur’s composition for Tár has done something radical, magical and profoundly humble. She has hit a frequency that is subliminal, almost imperceptible at first — a distant rumble of sorts — that vibrates and thrums at the tectonic core of the characters and their dilemmas. Such strength in delicacy and inventive elegance makes Hildur not only a great composer, but a great creative force with whom to engage.

Pinocchio behind-the-scene look

Source: Golden Globes, THR, IndieWire

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Cate Blanchett wins LAFCA Best Actress

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/11/cate-blanchett-wins-lafca-best-actress/

Cate Blanchett wins LAFCA Best Actress

TÁR wins big at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. The film tied Best Picture with Everything Everywhere All at Once. They awarded Cate Blanchett the Best Lead Performance Award with Bill Nighy. LAFCA’s acting category is now gender neutral but they are awarding two actors. Todd Field won Best Director and Best Screenplay while Monika Willi is a runner-up for Best Editing. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio where Cate voiced Spazzatura won Best Animation. The banquet to present the awards will be held on January 14th 2023.

TÁR is one of AFI’s 10 Best Pictures of the year. Honorees will be gathered at a luncheon on January 13th 2023.

Cate also received nominations from other critics groups last week:

St Louis Film Critics Association – Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Editing, Scene

DiscussingFilm Critics Awards – Best Actress, Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay

Las Vegas Film Critics – Best Actress, Original Screenplay

Washington DC Film Critics Association – Best Actress, Best Film, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, Score

Cate Blanchett previously won LAFCA Best Actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine.

Congratulations to #AFIAWARDS 2022 honoree @tarmovie, one of the most outstanding films of the year. pic.twitter.com/qhDNPWIut8

— AFI (@AmericanFilm) December 9, 2022

Source: LAFCA, AFI

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Cate Blanchett on Desert Island Discs

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/11/cate-blanchett-on-desert-island-discs/

Cate Blanchett on Desert Island Discs

Happy Sunday, everyone!

You can now listen to Desert Island Disc episode with Cate Blanchett where she shared some tracks and book she will take if cast away on a desert island.

Click image to listen

Tracks that Cate Blanchett chose:

Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor II – Gustav Mahler

Bésame Mucho – Los Panchos

Tannhäuser: Pilgrims’ Chorus – Richard Wagner

Go Tell the Women – Grinderman

Proof – I Am Kloot

Blow the Wind Southerly – Kathleen Ferrier

The Little Weaver Bird – Molly Drake

Lil’ Darlin’ – Count Basie

Seven things we learned from Cate Blanchett’s Desert Island Discs

1. Music is important to her – and helps when she’s preparing to take on a new role

“It’s often the starting point to me,” explains Cate, “when I’m thinking about a role or an atmosphere that you’re stepping into as an actor, because it obviously bypasses language. It’s a conduit for memory and non-linear connections, or strange left of field associations you might give birth to when you’re thinking about a role.”

She also admits that listening purely for pleasure hasn’t always been easy for her: “I think in the last 15 years, the constant cacophony of being a mother of four children [meant that] music had left my life a little bit and had been associated with work. And now that they’re locking themselves in their rooms and talking to their girlfriends, it’s come back into my life.”

Her most recent role is playing the conductor of a German orchestra in Todd Field’s film Tár: “Standing in front of the Dresden Philharmonic playing Mahler, [music] powerfully re-entered my life.”

She has chosen the second movement of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado, as her first desert island disc .

2. A much-loved song in Spanish reminds her of her father

Cate’s second track is Bésame Mucho (meaning ‘kiss me a lot’), written in 1940 by songwriter Consuelo Velázquez. Cate has chosen a much-loved version by Trio Los Panchos:

“This was on an album that my dad had and it was played a lot and I would always put it on and think of him. He grew up near the border of Mexico… [He] had a rather rough childhood on the streets of various towns in Texas. His was a childhood of neglect.”

She also recalls how a nautical mishap led to her parents’ first meeting: “[Dad] was in the US Navy… and his ship broke down in Melbourne [where] my mother was a teacher. She went down to the port with some friends to find some men to come to their teachers’ dance. And he happened to be one of them, and they danced all night. They corresponded for a couple of years and then he came back to Australia, and they decided to get hitched!”

3. Her relationship with music changed completely after her father’s sudden death

Cate was just 10 years old when her father died from a heart attack at the age of 41.

“There was a lot of dancing in my house, a lot of music actually, but it became quite silent after my dad died,” remembers Cate.

“I actually remembered the last time I saw him. I was playing the piano and he was going off to work – he was in advertising – and I waved goodbye and I stayed at the piano and then we went out to see the Muppet Movie – I loved the Muppets.”

“And then before the Muppet Movie came on, it flashed on the bottom of the screen: ‘Could Mrs. Blanchett please come and see the manager?’ and she did. I realised later that day that my father had had a fatal heart attack.”

Cate doesn’t remember playing the piano again after that.

“I just didn’t go back to it,” says Cate, “and I wonder now as I put myself on the couch, I wonder if it was because I associated it with the guilt of not getting up from the piano and kissing him goodbye?”

“Strangely, I didn’t think about it until I had actually sat down at the piano – my husband bought me a piano for my 50th birthday – and I went: ‘I’m going to play again,’ and suddenly all of these memories come flooding back.”

4. She much preferred singing to acting when she was at school

“All the parts in the school plays that were organised by the teachers went to the girls that were really confident, popular and good at sport,” laughs Cate, adding: “And I was not that!”

She was only cast in minor roles: “I was a statue in the Chronicles of Narnia… I was in white Lycra which no one looks good in, particularly as an adolescent girl. The stage manager cued us late and so I was climbing up on the rostrum – I had this beautiful pose planned – and I didn’t have time to turn around so all the audience saw was my bum!”

“I think probably the most important creative outlet for me was when I finally got up the courage to audition for the choir. The music school was massive at my school and there was a choir of probably about 140 girls.”

“This formidable hurricane of a musician Jane Elton Brown, absolutely terrifying round the music school, conducted the choir. I auditioned for her so she played arpeggios and started down low and she looked at me. She kept going up higher and she stopped. She took off her glasses and said, ‘You have a three octave range, girl!’ And so I got into the choir.”

“I think it was the place where I realised the power of the ensemble, that you were making music together. So when we sang in an unaccompanied way, it was really electrifying.”

Cate’s third desert island disc takes her back to a concert with the school choir – “in a hideous blue dress” – at the Melbourne Festival Hall. “I think it was one of the most transporting experiences of my life. Every time I listen to it, I weep with joy!”

Her choice is the Pilgrims’ Chorus from Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner.

5. Her first job with a casting agent gave her a great insight into how the industry works

After graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney, Cate didn’t immediately find work as an actor. Instead she accepted a job with Liz Mullinar, a leading Australian casting agent at the time. Cate was employed as a reader: when actors came in to audition, she would read the other lines in the scene – and watching dozens of actors trying to win parts made a big impression on her.

“It was extraordinary from an anthropological perspective, but also from a work perspective. You realised the energy, the way people walked into the room, whether they’d got the job or not. But I also realised when they left the room that whether you got the job or not wasn’t entirely dependent upon what you’d done. It wasn’t personal.”

“It was really liberating, and I think it allowed me to have a bit more devil-may-care attitude when in fact I eventually got an audition myself.”

6. Royal handwriting helped her to prepare for her breakthrough role

Cate first reached a global audience in the 1998 film Elizabeth: she played the title role, and won an Oscar nomination and a BAFTA. She recalls how her research for the part included a trip to the British Library, to see letters written by Elizabeth I.

“There were many examples of her handwriting – and watching her handwriting change from the letter that she wrote to her brother, to beg for her life when she was imprisoned, to a document she was writing to a French ambassador, which was very late in her life, and watching the handwriting become increasingly shaky, I understood something that I can’t even put into words… the length of her reign [44 years], the amount of personal sacrifice that she’d had to make and everything that had gone on under her when she was on the throne.”

7. Her portrayal of Bob Dylan was improved by one simple piece of advice

In 2007 Cate was one of the many actors taking on the role of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes’s distinctly unconventional biopic of the singer-songwriter.

“I played him at the time when he went electric, when he was really giving the finger to the audience and saying, ‘I’m not a folk singer’.”

“But playing a man… was it a man or was it a sort of a musical force? You realise that in that particular film the character was made up of many different parts.”

“A friend of mine who’s a make-up artist said to me a few days into the shoot: ‘Put a sock down your pants!’ I said: ‘What?!’ She said: ‘You’re on the bed, put a sock down your pants,’ and I said, ‘Oh, OK’ and I did! And I didn’t look back. It absolutely helped,” laughs Cate.

Source: BBC

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Cate Blanchett in Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, and Armani Beauty Holiday Ad

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/10/cate-blanchett-in-guillermo-del-toros-pinocchio-and-armani-beauty-holiday-ad/

Cate Blanchett in Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio, and Armani Beauty Holiday Ad

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio is now out on Netflix. Cate Blanchett voiced the monkey, Spazzatura. The movie is accompanied by a 30-minute behind-the-scene look on the stop-motion animated film.

There is a longer version of the Armani Beauty Holiday advert that you can watch below.

There are scans from The Times Saturday Review with a lengthy interview with Cate where she talks about TÁR. Her performance in TÁR made it to several publications’ “Best Performance in 2022” list. You can read the commentaries from the publications below.

Noora Niasari’s feature debut, Shayda, is part of World Cinema Dramatic Competition lineup at 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The movie is produced by Dirty Films, with Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton as executive producers.

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Cate-Blanchett-on-Guillermo-Del-Toros-Pinocchio.mp4

The Times Saturday Review – December 10th 2022

Cate Blanchett’s towering performance in TÁR in various publications’ “Best Performance of 2022” list

TIME — Todd Field’s Tár is hard to pin down: is it an exploration of the pigheaded dedication it takes to be a great artist, a celebration of all that art can mean to us, or a wicked extended gag about human selfishness? It’s all three of those things, and more, but through it all there’s no looking away from Cate Blanchett as the world-class orchestra conductor Lydia Tár. She’s the film’s resplendent center, its sun queen. Tár is about the invention, and subsequent unraveling, of a self. Blanchett’s Lydia glides through every phase until she hits what’s either a desperate nadir or the first stirrings of a rebirth—who knows which? Blanchett gives nothing away easily, though she keeps us close every step of the way, even if we need to run a little bit to keep up with her. In the end we’re not her audience; we’re her accomplices.

Los Angeles Times — For an actor who has incarnated English and Elvish royalty, impersonated Bob Dylan and Katharine Hepburn, and won an Oscar for channeling Ruth Madoff by way of Blanche DuBois, the role of a world-famous classical conductor might not seem the height of difficulty. But difficulty, always a misleading measure of acting greatness, has nothing to do with Lydia Tár’s allure. Plenty of actors could have studied piano, conducting and German to the level of technical fluency Blanchett achieves here; few could have invested Lydia Tár with the same otherworldly magnetism. This towering musical genius and ruthless manipulator comes to us fully formed; we hang on her every public and private word, her every flick of the pen and baton. And as Lydia’s world begins to crumble and her hold on reality falters, Blanchett somehow pulls us closer still, refusing to soft-pedal the character’s monstrosity — or her magnificence.

The New Yorker — There’s a reason that the once renowned, later disgraced, completely fictitious conductor Lydia Tár is talked about like a real person, at least in certain Twitter circles. Actually, there are two reasons: Todd Field’s note-perfect screenplay and direction, and Blanchett’s transfixing performance as the woman herself, a classical-music luminary brought low. Blanchett’s superpower is her self-possession, which, in films such as “Blue Jasmine” and “Carol,” she has used to show what happens when high-status women are forced to find new strategies to survive. “Tár” features her in one of her best modes—toxic diva—but the character feels like an entirely new creation. Blanchett’s velvety voice, shrewd eyes, and domineering intelligence seduce us—until we come to realize that Tár’s unravelling is a long time coming. “Tár” may have opened in October, but it feels as if Lydia Tár has been here all along.

IndieWIre — As a conductor who orchestrates her own undoing in “TÁR,” Cate Blanchett gives her career-best performance since she told Therese Belivet “I like the hat” in “Carol” seven years ago. Her Lydia Tár, here the most famous female conductor in the world, allows Blanchett to dig into the sinews of her gifts while also reflecting on her own public-figure status and genius.

Lydia’s interpersonal dealings with protégés, peers, fans, and colleagues become her inevitable destruction. Todd Field’s movie unfolds as a breakdown of the Lydia persona — and quite possibly of Blanchett’s as well, as the character attempts to triage her shattering public image. Field wrote the movie for Blanchett, and it’s easy to understand why: she is never less than absolutely riveting whether chewing out a Juilliard student for what she perceives is his inability to “sublimate” himself to his craft, or approaching a small girl in a schoolyard and telling her “I’ll get you” because she’s been rude to Lydia’s daughter.

The last half hour, especially, is a showcase for Blanchett as the Lydia mask slips off and “Linda” is revealed. The movie leaves you uneasy about where either one’s legacy ends up. But one thing you’re absolutely sure of walking away from “TÁR”? It’s one of the greatest performances ever filmed.

The Ringer — Often, we praise performances for their transformation—the character’s perceived distance from the performer’s everyday self. The beauty of Lydia Tár is how much she resembles Cate Blanchett. A widely lauded master of her distinctly highbrow craft, Tár spends her days shuttling between podcast tapings and New Yorkersymposia; Blanchett herself occupies the same milieu. Which may be how the actress makes the conductor a master class in ego gone awry. Lydia is essentially Cate with an ethnomusicology degree, a queer marriage, and a willingness to internalize her own hype. (Even Tár’s sexuality isn’t that much of a stretch, given Blanchett’s prior work in films like Carol.) Even before we learn exactly how Tár has abused the power that comes with her position, we can see her enjoy herself a little too much when browbeating a grad student or teasing an assistant with a potential promotion, a temptation Blanchett herself has surely entertained. That Tár is a genuine talent only emphasizes her tragedy. She’s a genius whose creation, by Blanchett in conjunction with writer and director Todd Field, is itself an act of genius. It’s become a tongue-in-cheek meme that Lydia Tár is a real person, a joke that’s plausible only because watching her demands no suspension of disbelief.

THR — JON FROSCH: Then there’s Cate Blanchett. She sometimes defaults to a kind of grandness that can make her performances collectively feel a bit homogenous. But when Blanchett connects, there are few in her league. Lydia Tár, the revered, then disgraced, conductor in Todd Field’s dazzlingly dense and immersive drama, is a towering creation — one of those sublime cases of alchemy between actor and role. Lydia’s contradictions are infuriating. But, as played by Blanchett, they’re also uncomfortably coherent, if that makes sense. We understand Lydia — and get caught up in her frightening swirl of power and human weakness — perhaps more than we want to admit.

LOVIA GYARKYE: Blanchett is electric in Tár. I can’t think of a better description of her performance than “uncomfortably coherent.” The portrayal feels almost conspiratorial, as if performer and character are scheming to unnerve an already apprehensive viewer. That heightens the experience of witnessing Lydia tumble as she loses both her status and self-control. Watching it all unfold feels like a steady inhale followed by a rapid, relentless exhale.

DAVID ROONEY: Blanchett can be too theatrical for my taste — I wasn’t a fan of her Oscar-winning Blanche DuBois riff in Blue Jasmine — but I was transfixed by every second of her forensic work here. I also love how Blanchett’s magisterial pyrotechnics are offset by scrupulously contained turns from Nina Hoss, as Lydia’s patient wife and colleague, whose loyalty dissolves when she’s treated with disrespect; and Noémie Merlant as the assistant who observes and archives each transgression.

FROSCH: So we all agree Blanchett deserves every prize handed to her.

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Actors on Actors; TÁR Conversations & Nominations

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/09/actors-on-actors-tar-conversations-nominations/

Actors on Actors; TÁR Conversations & Nominations

Good day, Cate Blanchett fans!

Cate Blanchett, with Deborah Mailman, made an appearance at this year’s Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards via video. They were on set of Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy which wrapped this week in South Australia.

We have added a section on the site where you can see the list of the awards and nominations Cate received for her performance in TÁR — left sidebar of the site (if on desktop) or scroll down if you are using mobile.

Variety released the Actors on Actors conversation with Cate Blanchett and Michelle Yeoh. Various conversations with the cast and crew of TÁR are now available to watch. There is also a new interview from Screen International and we updated the gallery with some stills from the movie and FYC posters.

AACTA & The New Boy

this was the message from cate & deb that was played at the aacta’s last night ? pic.twitter.com/RMbptFB7JG

— zee (@cursedsapphics) December 8, 2022

Award-winning First Nations filmmaker Warwick Thornton’s spiritual drama The New Boy wrapped this week in regional South Australia, with major production funding from Screen Australia’s First Nations Department alongside Fremantle and Gretel Packer’s Longbridge Nominees, who join producers Kath Shelper for Scarlett Pictures; and Cate Blanchett, Andrew Upton, Georgie Pym and Coco Francini for Dirty Films.

Newcomer Aswan Reid has been cast in the titular role, alongside Blanchett, Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair. An ensemble of new faces, including Shane Brady, Tyrique Brady, Laiken Woolmington, Kailem Miller, Kyle Miller, Tyzailin Roderick and Tyler Spencer, round out the cast.

Set in 1940s Australia, The New Boy is the story of a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy (Reid) who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery, run by a renegade nun (Blanchett), where his presence disturbs the delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival.

Screen Australia’s First Nations Department provides major production investment in association with Screen NSW and the South Australian Film Corporation. Roadshow Films is handling distribution in Australia and New Zealand. The First Nations Department first backed the project in development over a number of years.

The film is produced by Shelper for Scarlett Pictures, Blanchett, Upton and co-producer Pym for Dirty Films, and Lorenzo De Maio (of De Maio Entertainment), with Francini serving as executive producer for Dirty Films alongside Packer for Longbridge Nominees.

Conversations and Nominations for TÁR

The Franz Liszt Academy of Music shared some photos of Cate when she visited the academy. If you will remember Cate was in Budapest during the second quarter of 2021 for filming of Borderlands that is yet to have a release date. While on break from filming, she was preparing for her role as Lydia Tár. Emese Virág, who is a teacher at Liszt Academy, was Cate’s piano coach.

Emese Virág and Cate Blanchett at Liszt Academy

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A post shared by Liszt Academy Budapest (@zeneakademiaofficial)

The 2022 Atlanta Film Critics Circle Awards

Best Lead Actress: Cate Blanchett – TÁR#AFCC #AFCC2022Awards #TÁR @tarmovie @focusfeatures pic.twitter.com/lH2e4LuoSC

— Atlanta Film Critics Circle (@ATLFilmCritics) December 5, 2022

4th DiscussingFilm Critic Awards

BEST ACTRESS:

Taylor Russell, Bones and All Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once Cate Blanchett, Tár Danielle Deadwyler, Till Mia Goth, Pearl

See the full nominees list: https://t.co/izJK6UYPgb pic.twitter.com/4WDt0e69In

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 7, 2022

2022 #SatelliteAwards Nominations ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE DRAMA • Jessica Chastain – The Good Nurse • Cate Blanchett – Tár • Michelle Williams – The Fabelmans • Danielle Deadwyler – Till • Vicky Krieps – Corsage • Viola Davis – The Woman King pic.twitter.com/zjQjOKdZQF

— Satellite Awards™ (@SatelliteAwards) December 8, 2022

Click the image to watch the conversation with Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Todd Field, and Cate Blanchett moderated by Adam Gopnik in New York (October 2nd 2022).

Click the image to watch the conversation after a BAFTA screening in New York (October 5th 2022).

Click the image to watch the conversation after a SAG screening in Los Angeles (October 7th 2022).

Variety: Actors on Actors – December 7th 2022 Variety: Actors on Actors Photoshoot

Variety: Actors on Actors behind the scenes

Cate Blanchett recalls the moment after she said yes to ‘TÁR’

Cate Blanchett was in Budapest, filming video-game adaptation Borderlands for Eli Roth, when her agent called to say Todd Field had written a script especially for her. “We had met maybe 10 years ago, on a project he was doing with Joan Didion, and for one reason or another it didn’t happen,” recalls Blanchett of Field. “But he doesn’t leave the house very often to write and direct. It’s a rare thing. So my agent said, ‘I think you should read it quickly.’ She doesn’t say that very often. She’s only said it once or twice. I read it immediately and I couldn’t put it down.”

TÁR, Field’s first film as writer/director since 2006’s Little Children, tells the story of Lydia Tár, a pre-­eminent concert conductor and EGOT winner, who is preparing to record Gustav Mahler’s ‘Symphony No. 5’ with her Berlin orchestra. But as spectres from the past return to haunt her, the highly strung and volatile Lydia’s personal and professional lives unravel, resulting in a devastating fall from grace.

“I was bamboozled by it,” says Blanchett of Field’s script, which touches on issues of #MeToo, cancel culture and the corruptive nature of power. “You open the page and here comes an eight-page monologue about a whole lot of things I only vaguely understand, with terminology I had never heard, and I realised it made existential and rhythmic sense to me before it made intellectual sense. It haunted me. I said yes straight away. Then I got the knee sweats and realised just how much work I had to do.”

She jumped right in, learning piano, how to conduct and wield a baton. “Because of lockdown, a lot of musicians were unable to perform, which was an incredible gift for me, selfishly,” she says. “During the day, I was kicking and punching and flying through interstellar space. In the evening, I was having piano lessons and Zooming my friend [conductor] Natalie Murray Beale to dissect Mahler’s ‘Fifth’ and work out which pieces we should conduct in the rehearsals. It was an incredibly schizophrenic but exciting way to prepare.”

An education

Blanchett trawled through online rehearsal videos and masterclasses. “Thank God for the internet and YouTube. I started with the masterclasses of [Russian music teacher and conductor] Ilya Musin, because the first person I met was the conductor of the Scottish National Opera and he trained with Musin. He said to me, ‘It’s all about breath.’ In that way, it’s not so dissimilar from acting. The backstory of the character is she was a child of deaf parents, so I thought about sign language influencing her style. There were so many things brought to bear beyond simply learning that the right hand does the beating and the left hand does the expression. Anytime she was conducting, I wanted it to be as dynamic as possible and to advance the drama. Conducting is all about communication.”

It was Blanchett’s idea that Lydia speaks German to her musicians, despite at the time having only a school-level knowledge of the language. “Todd had said early on that he wanted to be a fly on the wall, he wanted to feel you were bearing witness to these rehearsals, to these people’s lives, so I said to him, ‘I’m making a rod for my own back, but she has to conduct the rehearsals in German. There’s no way she wouldn’t — it would be disrespectful. A friend put me in touch with Franziska Roth, who teaches opera singers to sing Wagner. She understood the language, the musical language, and was an enormous help.”

Lydia is an indelible creation: abrasive, petty, acerbic, deeply flawed, selfish, totally lacking in self-­awareness, monstrous. Blanchett’s committed performance saw her scoop the Volpi Cup for best actress at Venice, where TÁR premiered in September — ahead of the film’s North America release via Focus Features in October.

“Powerful forces move through a conductor. That’s why they’re called conductors, I guess,” muses Blanchett. “Even before I got to the end of the story, I thought, ‘What is she running from? Does she know how to be herself?’ She’s someone who believes in the ability for human beings to be transfigured by genius, who has surrendered and devoted herself to the supreme God of music, at great personal cost. The character is about to turn 50, which is enormous, and I always saw her as being in transition. She’s got to accept there’s this change happening.”

A birthday party sequence was shot, which “was extraordinary. But that whole thing has been excised from the film, and it’s only there in a subtle way. But I was very aware of that fact.”

Extended takes

Working with Field was, she says, “very symbiotic”. Many scenes were shot in extended takes. “We goaded one another creatively, to go outside our comfort zones, in ways I’ve experienced in theatre but rarely in film,” Blanchett reveals. “He is one of the great screen­writers, so there was an incredible architecture of the story to hold us. And within that, his preparedness to improvise, to see what happens, and to throw everything we had in our arsenal, was exhilarating.”

Blanchett is an executive producer on TÁR, a role that has come to the fore for her in recent years with Carol and miniseries Stateless and Mrs. America. “I spent a decade with my husband [Andrew Upton] running a very large cultural institution in Australia and had an incredible creative surge doing that,” she explains, with reference to the Sydney Theatre Company. “What has been waning, in terms of the respect for it, value for it and space for it, is the creative producer. People who understand how things are made, who have a sense of the whole, not just their part within it.”

“I have always, as an actor, been interested in the whole,” she continues. “That’s why I’ve played characters who died on page nine, and characters who’ve been in every frame. Creative producing, being the friend of the director, I find incredibly exciting. I don’t have to be in it.”

With Upton, Blanchett is producing Apples director Christos Nikou’s English-language debut Fingernails and developing a film of 1960s TV show The Champions with Ben Stiller. As she speaks to Screen International, she is back home in Australia for the first time in four years, starring in and producing feature film The New Boy for Warwick Thornton “about the intersection between Indigenous spirituality and Catholicism. He’s an Indigenous director I’ve always wanted to work with.”

Blanchett plays a nun — a long-cherished ambition, she reveals. “I watched a film years ago where Hayley Mills burnt down a convent and I thought, ‘Oh, being a nun would be so exciting,’” she laughs. “I’ve since watched documentaries about the Carmelites… and maybe not.”

TÁR FYC PostersTÁR StillsSource: SAFC, Screen International

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Cate Blanchett wins Best Actress at the 88th New York Film Critics Circle Award

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/12/03/cate-blanchett-wins-best-actress-at-the-88th-new-york-film-critics-circle-award/

Cate Blanchett wins Best Actress at the 88th New York Film Critics Circle Award

Great news for Cate Blanchett fans!

The New York Film Critics Circle has unveiled their winners yesterday, December 2nd. TÁR won Best Film and Cate Blanchett won Best Actress. Cate won the same award for her performance in Blue Jasmine which also delivered her second Oscar award, and was a runner-up for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Jude Quinn in I’m Not There for which she won her first Volpi Cup award and received an Oscar nomination.

The gala dinner where the winners will be presented the awards will be held on January 4th 2023.

There is another interview with Cate and Nina Hoss where they talked the about perspective vs. perception, time, consequence and intent in regards “TAR”. You can watch it below.

BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett, TÁR

— New York Film Critics Circle (@nyfcc) December 2, 2022

BEST FILM: TÁR

— New York Film Critics Circle (@nyfcc) December 2, 2022

  Source: Deadline

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Cate Blanchett on Variety's Music for Screens Summit; & other news

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/30/cate-blanchett-on-varietys-music-for-screens-summit-other-news/

Cate Blanchett on Variety's Music for Screens Summit; & other news

Hi, everyone!

TÁR won in all the categories it is nominated for at Sunset Circle Awards — Best Film, Best Actress for Cate Blanchett, Best Director and Screenplay for Todd Field, and Best Cinematography for Florian Hoffmeister.

Variety has made the conversation with Cate Blanchett, Todd Field, and Hildur Guðnadóttir available to watch online.

Check out other news below.

Best Actress, Winner: Cate Blanchett #TÁR #SCAwards pic.twitter.com/fyL3HBaQaM

— Sunset Circle Awards (@SunsetAwards) November 30, 2022

???

Variety’s Music for Screens Summit 2022 TÁR Ads and FYC posters  

On other news, this year is the second year of Earthshot Prize where Cate is co-founder and a council member. There is no confirmation whether she will be present at the event on December 2nd but according to The Times, she will be narrating a look back at the 2021 winners. It will be broadcasted on BBC One at 17:30 on December 4th, it will also be streamed on YouTube.

Cate is one of the backers of the new gallery, Sydney Modern, opening in Sydney this week. Cate has been quoted by The Times of the challenges that the new gallery will present.

“It’s a good thing that art poses thorny questions,” she says, because “art can break down the borders and boundaries of our imagination”. 

You may remember last month Cate moderated a conversation with Simone Young, who is the current and first female chief conductor at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, for the documentary Knowing the Score. According to TV Tonight, Cate is one of the executive producers of the documentary.

Knowing the Score is a “music documentary exposing a struggle for gender parity and for artists to be valued in times of crisis, or sometimes even at all.” It will be available on ABC iView in 2023.

Simone Young and Cate Blanchett at the preview screening of TÁR in Sydney.

Sources: Sunset Circle, TVTonight, Documentary Australia

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Cate Blanchett on Desert Island Discs, & Armani Beauty Holiday Campaign Ad

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/27/cate-blanchett-on-desert-island-discs-armani-beauty-holiday-campaign-ad/

Cate Blanchett on Desert Island Discs, & Armani Beauty Holiday Campaign Ad

Happy Sunday, everyone!

A reminder that Cate Blanchett will be on BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs on December 11th. She will be talking about her upbringing in Melbourne and her rise to fame.

A huge thank you to Cate Blanchett China for the promotional photos for the Armani Beauty holiday campaign. We have another version of the holiday campaign ad which you can watch below, and backstage videos from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Cate Blanchett on Desert Island Discs

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Armani-Beauty-Holiday-Campaign-2022-Cate-Blanchett.mp4

Armani Beauty Holiday – Photoshoot (2022)

Armani Beauty Holiday – Promotionals (2022)

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Cate-Blanchett-backstage-The-Late-Show-with-Stephen-Colbert-Oct-6-2022.mp4

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Cate-Blanchett-backstage-The-Late-Show-with-Stephen-Colbert-Nov-22-2022.mp4

Source: BBC

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New Cate Blanchett interviews & TÁR preview in London on New Year's Eve

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/23/new-cate-blanchett-interviews-tar-preview-in-london-on-new-years-eve/

New Cate Blanchett interviews & TÁR preview in London on New Year's Eve

Ciao, Blanchett fans!

Cate Blanchett has been nominated for Best Lead Performance at the Independent Spirit Awards. TÁR received a total of 7 nominations. Another interview with Cate and Nina Hoss has been released, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired their recent episode where Cate took The Colbert Questionert. There is going to be a preview screening of TÁR at Picturehouse cinemas in London on New Year’s Eve, you can book tickets here. The movie will be released in the UK on January 13th 2023.

We have added the scans from Financial Times: How to Spend It on our gallery. The January 2023 issue of Empire UK magazine is out now. Cate and Todd Field were interviewed by Olly Richards, and photographed by Mary McCartney during the recording of TÁR’s concept album.

#TÁR is nominated for seven #SpiritAwards, including Best Director (Todd Field), Best Lead Performance (Cate Blanchett) and Best Feature. pic.twitter.com/EX3wldyOhO

— TÁR (@tarmovie) November 22, 2022

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cateblanchett-lateshowwithstephencolbert-questionert.mp4

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/cateblanchett-lateshowwithstephencolbert.mp4

Financial Times: How to Spend It – November 19th 2022

Empire Magazine Interview

Here are some parts of the interview with Cate by Olly Richards.

If you’re ever having a nice chat with Cate Blanchett and want to stop it dead in its tracks, ask her about acting.

It’s like throwing a bucket of water over her. “I couldn’t be less interested in talking about it,” she says, slowly folding her arms as if this might deflect the question. She would rather talk about anything else. She’d like to talk about her garden (her onions are doing well). She’d like to talk about how amazing it is that we’re standing about 15 metres from where The Beatles recorded (we’re in Abbey Road Studios, which we’ll explain later). Just please, oh God, not acting. Unfortunately, we’re going to make her talk about it because, you may have noticed, she’s really very good at it. And in her new film she’s about the best at it she’s ever been.

The list of great Cate Blanchett performances is not short. It’s pretty much a list of all Cate Blanchett’s performances. After 1997’s Oscar and Lucinda she was talked of as a talent to watch. The next year she played Elizabeth I and showed she was a talent you couldn’t tear your eyes from. So it’s been ever since, The Aviator, Notes on A Scandal, Blue Jasmine, Carol. You might find some duff films on her CV, but you won’t find a duff performance.

TÁR, though, sees Blanchett operating on a different level. She’s ripping through layers of a complicated, troubled woman in a way that leaves you wrung out just spectating. It’s like watching Whitney Houston sing or Gene Kelly dance. You know they’re made of approximately all the same bits as you, but it’s impossible to fathom how they’ve been able to put them to much more remarkable use. At 53, Blanchett is doing the most astonishing work of her career.

The reason we’re at Abbey Road is because Field and Blanchett are, in a very meta move, making a concept album inspired by Tár’s planned Mahler album. Blanchett is readying to conduct the Dresden Philharmonic (the orchestra in the film), who will arrive tomorrow. Their chairs are set up, expectantly awaiting orchestral bottoms. “It’s all in the breath,” says Blanchett, waving her hand gently in the air. “If you stop breathing, you break the communication with the orchestra, You stop thinking when you stop breathing.”

She will talk about conducting for as long as you like. She spent months studying it — the right hand keeps tempo; the left instructs the orchestra — as well as learning to play the piano so well that she could interpret Bach piece in multiple ways. She likes to talk about the brilliant people who taught her things, but resist any talk of her own skills. We try to take her back to the first note of her performance. As it turns out, becoming Lydia Tár began as all Blanchett’s favorite roles do: with absolute terror and confusion.

Back in 2012, Field was writing a political thriller with Joan Didion. It fell through but not before he’d spoken to Blanchett about playing the lead. She lurked at the edges of his mind for years, until in 2020 he began writing TÁR. The character kept assuming a familiar face. “I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t tell the studio. They thought I was writing this about a man. I thought, ‘How do I want to tell this story?’ And I thought it had to be a woman… it’s Cate.”

He was terrified about actually asking, but sent her the script, which he never does before meeting an actor. When Blanchett received it, she was just as frightened. She had no idea what she was expected to do with this woman.

“It was mind-blowing,” says Blanchett. “Because I didn’t know what it was. That, for me, is the most exciting and dangerous way to start a project. Often when you read something you can admire it, but if you know exactly what it is, then you should hand it over to someone else, because it’s already made in your head. I had no idea how to approach this.”

Blanchett never really stops preparing. She has an iPad full of bits of characters; pages of notes, links and clips that make sense only to her but might one day become a fragment of a character’s life. They might not have been assigned to a particular character when she saves them. “You never know where the key to a character lies,” she says. “Sometimes its in a conversation, in a piece of music you listen to, or a gesture someone did.” She laughs as she remembers one of the references for TÁR.

That iPad is a place for new characters to gestate, but also a sort of crypt for the ones who never made it. She can’t bring herself to delete them. She recently found a file she’d made for Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited, which she was going to make with Luca Guadagnino. “I thought, ‘I should delete this, because it’s not going to happen now.” But I was reading it on a train and I thought, ‘There are interesting thoughts. Who knows what they’re going to become?'”

Blanchett loves to have her own ideas confronted. “To be in agreement all the time, to be in a room where everyone thinks the same way or speaks the same way, I’ll run a mile. I think that’s what’s wrong with democracy at the moment. We’ve lost that robust townhall debate.” She brings it all back neatly to music and conducting. “You can only hear harmony if you’ve heard discord,” she says. “You’ve got to tune the instrument.”

Blanchett has been tuning her instrument for over 25 years now. In the quarter of a century since her first movie, Paradise Road, she’s racked up 60 film acting credits, not including short films or television. That’s a lot. Tom Cruise only has 47 and he’s been going 16 years longer. Julia Roberts has 52. Famously prolific Nicole Kidman has 68, with a 14-year head start. Blanchett gasps when we tell her the number. “Terrible!” Well, it definitely isn’t terrible, but it does suggest someone who needs to work. “I do find it hard to say no,” she says. “Some things I should have said no to.” She never really lets herself stop working and isn’t sure what she’d do if she did. “I need to develop some hobbies,” she says. “But I suppose work is my hobby. Or it’s a compulsion.”

“I reserve the right to walk away,” she says with mock imperiousness. “Everyone has a different relationship with work, but I do need to be seduced back into it.” So it’s not that she has a compulsion to work for the sake of work, but that she keeps getting seduced. And she likes to be seduced rather than the seducer. She still has a big list of directors she wants to work with — Ari Aster, Jane Campion, Park Chan-wook, Kelly Reichardt — but she hasn’t let them know. “I’m quite shy,” she says. The only one she’s not shy with is Scorsese, who directed her in The Aviator. “Every time I see him I say, ‘Come on. I’m not getting any younger. When are you going to make a film with a fucking woman at the centre?'” She says it so fiercely, you have to assume Scorsese is somewhere writing in a panic right now.

You can read the full interview on the scans below and you can purchase the magazine here.

[cateblanchettfan]

Cate Blanchett's Desert Palm Achievement; on Eurythmics, Governor Awards photos, TÁR interview & upcoming appearances

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/21/cate-blanchetts-desert-palm-achievement-on-eurythmics-governor-awards-photos-tar-interview-upcoming-appearances/

Cate Blanchett's Desert Palm Achievement; on Eurythmics, Governor Awards photos, TÁR interview & upcoming appearances

Happy Monday!

Cate Blanchett will receive the Desert Palm Achievement Award for Actress at Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Cate appeared on a reel that was shown at the induction ceremony of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, she spoke about Eurythmic.

Telluride Film Festival has released the conversation with Cate during her tribute last September 2022. We have added photos from the Governors Awards and there is a new interview with Cate and Nina Hoss. TÁR is still playing in some theatres in the US and is now available to stream in both US and Canada.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert will air a part of Cate’s interview from last October this week, and Cate will also be on BBC’s Radio 4 programme next month.

Cate Blanchett to Receive Desert Palm Achievement Award for ‘Tár’ at Palm Springs International Film Awards

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will add another accolade to her extensive list of accomplishments at the Palm Springs International Film Awards, where she is set to receive the Desert Palm achievement award for an actress for her lead performance in “Tár.”

“Cate Blanchett is truly one of the best actresses of this generation, whose performances are always extraordinary no matter the role,” said Harold Matzner, chairman of the film festival. “There is no one better suited for this role.”

Blanchett was previously recognized with the Desert Palm achievement award in 2016 for the Todd Haynes’ period drama “Carol.”

The awards ceremony will commence Jan. 5, 2023 at the Palm Springs Convention Center, but the film festival will continue through Jan. 16.

Cate Blanchett on Eurythmics

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Cate-Blanchett-on-Eurythmics-2022.mp4

Telluride Film Festival Conversation

Click image to watch the conversation

Governors Awards

Cate Blanchett at the Governors Awards re-wore the Alexander McQueen dress she first wore at the Venice Film Festival in 2020. She accessorized the look with Louis Vuitton jewelry, and as for make-up, Mary Greenwell, used Armani Beauty products.

Cate’s glam team: Mary Greenwell (make-up), Robert Vetica (hair), Elizabeth Stewart (styling).

Controversial: They invited Lydia Tár! pic.twitter.com/rUYTIfzChy

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) November 20, 2022

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TÁR interview

"We need more movies like TÁR."

On demand now: https://t.co/z6goS4AfQq pic.twitter.com/qQ28Gt3rUW

— TÁR (@tarmovie) November 16, 2022

Upcoming appearances

The Late Show will air “The Colbert Questionert” segment with Cate on November 22nd, 11:35pm ET.

Desert Island Discs, will broadcast an interview with Cate on December 11th, 11:15am GMT, on BBC Radio 4.

Source: Variety

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First Look: Cate Blanchett at the 2022 Governors Awards

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/20/first-look-cate-blanchett-at-the-2022-governors-awards/

First Look: Cate Blanchett at the 2022 Governors Awards

Hi, everyone!

Cate Blanchett is at the 13th Governors Awards. Here is our first look.

Cate Blanchett at the Governors Awards. https://t.co/IQQFsHQsqh pic.twitter.com/vqWPyZTwDu

— Variety (@Variety) November 20, 2022

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Cate Blanchett on magazine covers

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/18/cate-blanchett-on-magazine-covers/

Cate Blanchett on magazine covers

Ciao!

Cate Blanchett is featured on the cover of Financial Times’ How to Spend It weekly magazine. It will available on UK newsstands this Saturday and Sunday. The latest issue of Pianist Magazine where Cate is on the cover too is out now.

Beware of spoilers!

The revelations of Cate Blanchett

For her next role, Cate Blanchett is… “Oh God,” cries the Australian actress, “I look like a vampire! I look like I’m about to play the organ!” She is sitting late one night in the study of her home in the English countryside, and it’s true, the mood is gothic with a touch of eco-spiritual, with two small owl totems looming behind her. The surroundings are very dark, and more to the point, she is wearing black, pointed, thick-rimmed glasses that make the actress, one of Hollywood’s most beautiful women, look like she’s auditioning for a highbrow reboot of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. Luckily, she’s smiling.

Blanchett, 53, is home after a long day spent filming her latest project, Disclaimer, a new thriller series for Apple TV directed by Alfonso Cuarón. At her feet, alternately snoozing and scratching, are her three dogs Doug, Polly and Fletcher, who mostly behave themselves (although “they’ll start farting in a minute”, she warns, “and we’ll really be in trouble”). Disclaimer will add to a lengthy list of achievements, including Oscar-winning turns in Blue Jasmine and The Aviator, two Oscar-nominated takes on Elizabeth I, roles in other films such as Carol, Hanna and The Lord of the Rings, plus TV series like Stateless or Mrs America. A theatre actress by training, she has starred in a slew of ambitious stage productions as well, not least when she co-ran the Sydney Theatre Company with her husband, Andrew Upton. She shares her British home (and others across the world) with him, their three sons and daughter, and her mother.

Blanchett will star in two films this season, one of which has already placed her as a leading contender in the annual awards-season circuit. Tár is a virtuoso piece written and directed by Todd Field that showcases the actress as Lydia Tár, a complicated music conductor who, approaching 50 and preparing a seminal performance of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, is also careening towards a gigantic personal reckoning. It really is a showcase: Blanchett is in every single scene. “Look,” she admits, “it was one of the most extraordinarily intense and revelatory experiences I have ever had.”

Artistic with a capital “A”, ambitious, elusive, refusing easy definitions but eye-wateringly committed, the performance arguably sums up the actress herself. Todd Field confirms this when asked if he wrote it with her in mind. “No, not with Cate in mind. I wrote it for Cate, and only Cate. Of course, she didn’t know that,” says the maker of Little Children, who has been absent from our screens for 16 years. The two had met several years ago with an eye to collaborating on a film Field had written with Joan Didion, but nothing came of it. Instead, the meeting left Field with “the impression of an individual operating at the pitch of perception, someone who possessed the kind of wit and intelligence one rarely, if ever, encounters. An honest-to-God genius. So, who better to play a genius?”

You can read the full article on Financial Times.

Pianist Magazine

The December 2022 and January 2023 issue of Piano Magazine is out now. You can purchase a copy here.

Cate Blanchett casts a spell over any role she takes, whether on stage or screen, indie of blockbuster. She has played a 16th-century monarch (Elizabeth), an ageless princess (Lord of the Rings), a predatory Nazi collaborator (The Good German), Katharine Hepburn (The Aviator), a British schoolteacher who has an affair with a teenage student (Notes on a Scandal), even a version of Bob Dylan, complete with big hair and sideburns (I’m Not There). In each case, she is fully them, and fully herself before our eyes.

After such a breathtaking gallery of characters, perhaps the backstage conflict, onstage triumphs, sublime highs and soul-searching lows of the music world are not so impossible a leap for Blanchett to take in her latest film, TÁR.

It comes as a no surprise to learn that Blanchett has assumed the character of Lydia Tár by dint of meticulous preparation. She has learnt how to give a convincing upbeat in font of a hundred musicians. She has also brushed up her childhood German and piano studies in order to show Tár behind the scenes, doing the hard yards of private study which make every conductor’s life an essentially lonely one.

Blanchett meet two days after a private screening of Tárm in company with the film’s writer, producer, and director, Todd Field.

From early on, Field had his lead role fixed in the mind’s eye. ‘I wrote the script for Cate,’ he says. ‘I’ve never written for an actor, ever. And I guess I painted myself into a deadly corner, because if she had said no, I’ have been in a sticky situation,’ he laughs. ‘Tár is a very particular character, and I knew that it had to be Cate. So I was lucky: this is one of the most creative experiences I’ve had.’ Blanchett jumps in: ‘Likewise — I feel lucky too! I’d never read such a script… it was speaking a language that I did not speak, so there was a lot of research to do.’

‘The music world is so insular and so hierarchical,’ continues Blanchett. ‘I knew I had to get to a point where you didn’t need to be from, or live inside, the classical music world in order to know what the character was talking about. It’s like if you watch a film about rocket scientist, it has to be about something else. That was just the language she spoke. It’s masterful in that it’s so specific yet so universal.’ Evidently well advised, Blanchett studied masterclasses given by the Russian conducting guru Ilya Musin, looked at films of Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber, Emmanuelle Haïm, and Bernard Haitink in performance, and took practical lessons with the conducting coach, Natalie Murray Beale.

Playing a pianist — and the piano

When it comes to the piano, lessons from Blanchett’s Melbourne childhood were buried somewhere in the muscle memory, but they needed digging up. Again her role model was a shrewdly chosen one: ‘When I started thinking about the demeanour or the deportment of what the character might be, I watched a lot of interviews with Imogen Cooper. There’s no parallel between her and the character at all, or what the character says or does. It was more about her intelligence and the way that she could talk about what it is that she does – the years of work and practice that she did.’

Blanchett was filming in Budapest as she was beginning to prepare for Tár. ‘I was worried because I knew I had to play these bits and pieces, and I thought, “I have to get some lessons”. I was lucky to find Emese Virág, who teaches at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. She would come to see me once a week.’

At one point in the film, Tär sits down to play Bach’s familiar C major Prelude. She plays it romantically at first, then more analytically in the style of Glenn Gould, and carries on a conversation, as any practised musician might. Blanchett reflects on the challenge: ‘Emese taught me how to play the piece, but I also had to understand how to play Bach – the kind of freedom that the rules give you. I had to treat playing the piano like dialogue, like a language.’

‘Emese would play,” Blanchett continues, ‘and then I’d ask, “How would you play it as if you were trying to play it like this person or that person?” She was amazing. She’d probably be horrified if she heard me!’ It is, all the same, quite a feat. ‘It was scary but it was also fun,’ says Blanchett. ‘I love an impossible challenge. And you know if you fail at it, then you fail at it. But you have to give it a go.’

Field’s camera shows Blanchett’s face rather than her fingers during the scene, but he insists that she is playing every note. “We had a long talk about this. I didn’t focus on her hands for a reason.’ He explains: ‘You master something, and you want someone to see it, right? But what if you were Leonard Bernstein? Would I show his hands? No. With films of Bernstein, his Harvard lectures and so on, you see his facial expressions. You don’t have to prove that he can conduct. I wanted the same for this character.’

Has her work on the film made Blanchett more fascinated with the piano? ‘Oh, I have always been,’ she replies. ‘People who are astonishing musicians and who can do magic make me want to scream with joy. It’s like when you ride a horse, you have a symbiotic relationship with the horse. By watching Emese play, I glimpsed that you become one with that instrument. It’s magic.’

You can read the full article on the scans below.

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UNCHR Video Campaign; and TÁR interviews

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/14/unchr-video-campaign-and-tar-interviews/

UNCHR Video Campaign; and TÁR interviews

Hi, everyone! Hope we will all have a good week ahead.

UNHCR Spain released another video campaign with UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Cate Blanchett, to encourage people to donate to help the people of Ukraine for the coming winter.

There are also a couple more interviews from Sydney screening of TÁR and listen to an extended interview from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

UNHCR Campaign

The tragic war in #Ukraine continues to destroy lives. And now winter is coming, threatening sub-zero temperatures. Cate Blanchett explains how UNHCR is helping millions of families displaced by violence who have to survive this harsh winter.

You can donate here.

  TÁR Interviews

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Interviews from the Sydney Screening of TÁR and additional photos

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/13/interviews-from-the-sydney-screening-of-tar-and-additional-photos/

Interviews from the Sydney Screening of TÁR and additional photos

Good day, Blanchett fans!

We have gathered interviews and added photos from the special screening of TÁR in Sydney. There are two screenings in the afternoon where Cate introduced the movie then participated in a Q&A. She also interviewed conductor, Simone Young, after a screening of the documentary, Knowing the Score.

Standing ovation for Cate Blanchett at packed TÁR preview

There was no doubt who a thousand movie-goers turned up to see on a sultry Sunday afternoon.

After acclaim around the world, starting with winning best actress at the Venice Film Festival, Cate Blanchett was the star at two previews of Todd Field’s film Tar in Sydney.

On screen for virtually all the drama’s more than two-and-a-half hours, Blanchett gives a darkly riveting performance that seems assured of landing her a seventh Oscar nomination.

She proved so popular that the Cremorne Orpheum sold out a first session in an hour and, cinema events manager Rachell Baker said, a second was added that sold out in 20 minutes.

On an afternoon that had earlier seemed more suited to a lightning conductor than an orchestral one, Blanchett received a standing ovation as she arrived on stage for a Q&A session.

She said the offer to star in Tar came out of the blue a decade after meeting and forming a connection with Field, the American director best known for Little Children and In The Bedroom.

“I knew that I’d love to be in a creative dialogue with him in some way,” she said. “So I’d sort of already said yes before I’d read it.”

Blanchett said it was a film about power and the cost of striving for excellence in a changing world.

“It’s a really important thing to grapple with: how can we strive for excellence with the same degree of rigour and demand that excellence takes but do it respectfully?,” she said. “We’re grappling with this, with one another, in the workplace. This could just as easily have taken place in an architecture firm or she could have been the CEO of a major banking corporation.”

To prepare for the role, Blanchett studied the history of orchestral music and famous conductors and learnt a range of new skills – conducting, playing piano and speaking German. But not, as has been reported, stunt driving.

“I don’t say I’m very good at many things but I’m a very good driver,” she said to laughter. “Although my daughter does sit in the back seat going ‘hoooooo’.”

Blanchett said filming the conducting scenes at the start of the shoot in Germany was a gift: “I realised what the character had to lose because it is magnificent standing in the centre of that sound.”

TÁR: The power of Cate Blanchett’s passion, and vice versa

Cate Blanchett is no stranger to the theatre of passion and power – nor to the world of classical music – but in her portrayal of world-­renowned conductor, Lydia Tar, the two-time academy award winner is breaking new ground.

Blanchett, whose performance in Tar has already sparked feverish talk of a third Oscar win, was in Sydney on Sunday promoting her latest film about a lesbian composer and conductor who becomes the first woman to lead the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

While Australians will have to wait until January 2023, Blanchett told an audience at a special screening at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace that the film was uncomfortable and would give no easy answers. “(It) is a meditation on power. It says no one’s innocent, no one’s entirely guilty and absolutes are nonsense … It’s very difficult to find spaces where you can have nuanced discussions about the big questions that we need to ask ourselves.”

Blanchett, also executive producer of the film, said despite her character being a difficult, deeply flawed and complex personality, it was still possible to love the art even if you do not love the artist.

“One of the great joys in life is being part of something that one doesn’t in the least bit understand,” she told the audience. “I think a great joy for me as an actor is grappling with characters, who say and do and experience things you don’t understand … to try and place yourself literally — as the cliche goes — in their shoes.”

Critics have praised Blanchett’s portrayal of Tar as one of her most compelling performances, comparing it to her 2013 Oscar-winning performance in Blue Jasmine.

“I feel so blessed to have worked alongside … the Dresden Philharmonie (during the filming) which was a life-changing experience to stand up on the podium in front of all those musicians.”

SHES SO FUNNY AND FOR WHAT pic.twitter.com/nLv0AcWL1h

— zee | TODAY (@cursedsapphics) November 13, 2022

Cate Blanchett, introducing TÁR.

Legend. pic.twitter.com/XTCtvhRtPe

— Harris Dang aka Critic Name (@FilmMomatic) November 13, 2022

The red carpet has been rolled out for one of our own this afternoon. Cate Blanchett was down under for the first time in three and a half years for a preview screening of her film TÁR. The movie follows the story of a conductor who leads one of the world's best orchestras. pic.twitter.com/LEFw3OzUJS

— 7NEWS Sydney (@7NewsSydney) November 13, 2022

Oscar winner Cate Blanchett has walked the red carpet for a special preview screening of her new movie Tár in Sydney l @AngelaBishop pic.twitter.com/Hbc85B70Vv

— 10 News First (@10NewsFirst) November 13, 2022

https://www.cate-blanchett.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/TAR_Cate_Blanchett_ABC_News_Sydney.mp4

Cate Blanchett interviewing ‘Maestro’ Simone Young at a screening of ‘Knowing the Score’, a wonderful doco on Simone’s extraordinary career. Congrats to producer Margie Bryant, Director Janine Hosking & everyone who worked on this wonderful doco. pic.twitter.com/E1vJlBKrNq

— Anita Jacoby AM (@Anita_Jacoby) November 13, 2022

Bravo all involved w “Knowing The Score”. An important documentary of extraordinary Conductor, Simone Young. Great to hear from director Janine Hosking & producer Margaret Bryant then v special conversation between Simone & Cate Blanchett ?? @sydsymph #SimoneYoung #documentary pic.twitter.com/XRwUi4QoL7

— sam mostyn (@sammostyn) November 13, 2022

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A post shared by Jeanne Ryckmans (@jeannefrites)

Source: The Age, The Australian

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Cate Blanchett attends special screening of TÁR in Sydney

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/13/cate-blanchett-attends-special-screening-of-tar-in-sydney/

Cate Blanchett attends special screening of TÁR in Sydney

Hi, everyone!

Cate Blanchett is in Sydney today for the special screening of TÁR co-presented by Sydney Film Festival. Check out the site for more updates later.

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TÁR Music Video, & Magazine Features

New Post has been published on https://www.cate-blanchett.com/2022/11/11/tar-music-video-magazine-features/

TÁR Music Video, & Magazine Features

Happy Friday, Blanchett fans!

Deutsche Grammophon released the abstract music video on one of the tracks, Mortar by Hildur Guðnadóttir, from TÁR’s soundtrack. Cate also covers the December 2022/January 2023 issue of the Pianist Magazine with a new interview. She and Todd Field are also featured on the latest issue of Coup De Main.

Mortar Music Video

Deutsche Grammophon’s groundbreaking concept album for Todd Field’s critically acclaimed new film TÁR captures the process of music-making that lies at the heart of the film. The soundtrack features a series of stunning new works by Hildur Guðnadóttir. Representing the psychological aspect of the story, and the protagonist’s troubled state of mind, Guðnadóttir’s score has an unsettling, almost unearthly feel. Its purpose, says the composer, “is to be otherworldly and to be this kind of invisible thing that seeps into your unconscious”. One of the tracks that helps build this disquieting atmosphere is “Mortar”, featuring the composer herself on cello. Todd Field has made a standalone video for the piece in which Guðnadóttir and the cast of TÁR all appear, their distorted images again mirroring Lydia Tár’s disintegrating world.

“The idea was born from conversations with Cate Blanchett,” explains the director. “This piece of film was conceived as an in-between place for the main character to fall into herself. A place where the natural laws of her waking state do not apply. The shooting process involved all cast members, and was photographed at the end of each day during principal photography in Berlin and South East Asia in 2021. In September 2022 Hildur and I met again in Berlin where she stepped back into this place and bound herself to the other players.”

Magazine Features

Cate covers the new issue of Pianist Magazine which will be out on November 18th. She talks to editor, Erica Worth about TÁR. You can order here.

Cate with Todd Field are featured on the latest issue of Coup De Main DIY magazine where they talk about TÁR. You can order here.