Cate Blanchett

COMING SOON!

One of Australia's greatest exports, she's made her name taking on versatile roles in some of the decade's biggest films, including the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Who will she become next?

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Cate Blanchett
born: 14-05-1969
birth place: Melbourne, Australia

Her first high-profile role came a year later when she played Elizabeth I of England, in the 1998 feature Elizabeth. The part earned her a Golden Globe Award and British Academy Award (Bafta) for best actress, although she lost out on an Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow.

The following year, Blanchett was nominated for another Bafta award for her supporting role in The Talented Mr Ripley. Work quickly followed in the form of the well-received 'Pushing Tin' and horror tale, 'The Gift'.

In 2001 she starred in 'Bandits' with Bruce Willis, before embarking on her biggest yet least challenging part, when she appeared as the elf queen Galadriel in Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings trilogy (2001-2003).

Tougher was the role of Charlotte Gray, an adaptation of Sebastian Faulks’ bestseller, where she played a young Scot who joins the French resistance to save her RAF boyfriend who's been shot down over France. Unfortunately the movie – which was the most expensive British film ever made – was a failure at the box office.

Undaunted, Blanchett moved on to star alongside Kevin Spacey in The Shipping News, based on the novel by E. Annie Proulx. The story centers on Quoyle, a New York journalist. Shortly after the suicide of his parents, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive wife Petal sells their daughters to a child pornographer and attempts to leave the city and her husband.

The diversity of her work continued in 2003, when she took the title role in the true story of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin and her campaign against Dublin's major drug dealers. The film, directed by Joel Schumacher, opened with Guerin's assassination in 1996 and then retraced her path to this point.

Parts in a number of successful movies followed, including Wes Anderson’s Life Aquatic, the satirical tale of a Jacques Cousteau-style documentary maker; and Martin Scorsese’s biopic of Howard Hughes, The Aviator. Cate would face the challenge of delivering a believable Katherine Hepburn.

2006 proved to be a fairytale year for the Australian actress, as all three of her films were Oscar-nominated. First came Babel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's searing analysis of humans under pressure. Blanchett appeared alongside Brad Pitt as tourists in Morocco trying to get over the loss of a baby. This was followed by her role as a prostitute in Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, which was set in Berlin during World War II. Her final movie of the year was Notes On A Scandal. Here she played a pottery teacher married to older man Bill Nighy, who slips into an affair with a 15-year-old pupil.

2007 will see the multi-talented actress reprise her role as Elizabeth I in the upcoming sequel titled Elizabeth: the Golden Age. The film will tell the story of one woman's crusade to control love, crush enemies and secure her position as a beloved icon of the western world.

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Links relating to this biography:
Cate Blanchett Online Fansite