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Cate Blanchett’s new play When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other is already being mooted as the year’s most controversial UK production.
After a woman fainted during the show’s opening performance , London’s National Theatre sent round an email apologising for not warning the audience of its explicit content – but really, when Blanchett is involved, nothing should come as a surprise.
As one of the most fearless, versatile and accomplished actors around, Blanchett elevates and transforms any role she’s given. With her dusky voice and exquisitely controlled facial expressions, she is a Hollywood star and a theatrical chameleon, both standing out from, and disappearing into, every part, whether it’s an elf queen or a closeted Fifties lesbian.
You probably won’t be able to see her new play – tickets were so popular that they were allocated via a lottery – but at least her imposing filmography is there to soften the blow.
Here are her 10 best performances onscreen.
The 10 best Cate Blanchett filmsShow all 10 1 /10The 10 best Cate Blanchett films The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 10. Manifesto (2017) Technically, this should rank as numbers 22 to 10 of Blanchett’s best roles. She plays 13 different characters in Julian Rosefeldt’s experimental film, which began as a multi-screen installation before being condensed into a 90-minute feature. Each of its characters – which include a school teacher, a puppeteer, and a homeless man – recites the manifestos of various politicians, philosophers and artists, from Karl Marx to Lars Von Trier. The result is strange, captivating, horrifying, and funny in equal measure. Alexandra Pollard
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 9. Oscar and Lucinda (1997) Blanchett was essentially unknown before 1997, but received critical acclaim for her first leading role, as a 19th-century gambling addict and glass enthusiast in Gillian Armstrong’s eccentric, beguiling romantic drama. She starred alongside Ralph Fiennes and shone as a “proud square peg” in a world of round holes – a description that has proven somewhat fitting for her movie career, too. AP
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 8. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) The great director Anthony Minghella described Blanchett as “the Bach of acting” after casting her in his adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s psychological thriller, heaping praise on the “remarkable transformation” that happens when the camera rolls. Here, she’s a rich, gauche young American socialite visiting Europe for the first time. Her role is not a large one – though every time Minghella revisited the screenplay, it became bigger – but Blanchett seizes it with both hands. AP
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 7. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001) Though she may have starred in her fair share of Hollywood blockbusters, from 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok to 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , no other role has so perfectly suited Blanchett’s ethereal presence than the Lady of Lothlórien herself, Galadriel. Dressed in shimmering white, and forever backlit to create the illusion of a halo, the elf queen is a momentary dream, offering a place of respite for the film’s heroes, as they recover from the loss of their leader, Gandalf (Ian McKellen). But Blanchett brings far more to the role than mere regal posturing; her enigmatic demeanour hints at danger as much as it does wisdom, as so memorably revealed in her moment of temptation, corrupted by the power of the Ring. In the actor’s hands, “All shall love me and despair!” becomes a chilling declaration. Clarisse Loughrey
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 6. I’m Not There (2007) Six different actors, including Christian Bale, Richard Gere and Heath Ledger, play different facets of Bob Dylan’s public personas in Todd Haynes’s musical drama – but it is Blanchett, as an embodiment of his Sixties foray into electric guitars and existential angst, who steals the film. It’s not surprising that Haynes thought of Blanchett again a decade later, when he came to make Carol. AP
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 5. Notes on a Scandal (2006) As cinematic two-handers go, it doesn’t get much better than Blanchett and Judi Dench in this morally troubling psychological drama. Blanchett plays Sheba, a school teacher who is having sex with her 15-year-old student. It is the intense, toxic, lustful relationship between her and Dench’s Barbara, though, around which the film revolves, and both actors clearly relish the dark, delicious ambiguity of it all. AP
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 4. Elizabeth (1998) Margot Robbie had some big shoes to fill when she stepped into the role of the Virgin Queen in this year’s Mary Queen of Scots – in Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth, Blanchett beautifully navigates the monarch’s ascent (or, perhaps, descent) from naive, indecisive 21-year-old to imposing, intrepid leader. The film’s climactic transfiguration, in which Elizabeth declares herself married to the throne and reveals her now famous ghostly pallor, is intoxicating. AP
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 3. The Aviator (2004) Blanchett won her first Academy Award for her role as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 Howard Hughes biopic. It’s a testament to the studiousness of her transformations; every pose, line, or look here is a pitch-perfect imitation of the Hollywood legend, but without any of the emotional stiffness that haunts perfectionists of this type. Blanchett interprets Hepburn as all angles: the boom of her upper-class, New England accent, the jaunt of her walk, and the forcefulness of her mannerisms. Yet, most crucially, she captures her vulnerability, too. As Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) taunts her – “You are a movie star, nothing more” – Blanchett’s reaction hints at the brittle quality that made Hepburn’s performances so mesmerising to watch. CL
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 2. Blue Jasmine (2013) As Jeanette “Jasmine” Francis, Blanchett is a modern-day Blanche Du Bois, a Manhattan socialite with a drinking problem who descends on her quiet, sensible sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and irrevocably disrupts her life. The film’s director, Woody Allen, has rightly fallen out of favour recently, but Blue Jasmine deserves to be seen for Blanchett’s electrifying performance as a woman as piteous as she is loathsome. AP
The 10 best Cate Blanchett films 1. Carol (2015) “What a strange girl you are,” says Blanchett as Carol, clutching a cigarette and scrutinising the younger woman with whom she is falling in love. “Flung out of space.” It is a line she fills to the brim with such deeply felt subtext that it’s not hard to believe that Rooney Mara’s Therese is besotted with Carol from a single glance. In Todd Haynes’s gorgeous adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, Blanchett is charismatic and inscrutable one moment, fragile and vulnerable the next. It is a beautiful performance. AP
Blanchett will next be seen in Richard Linklater film, Where'd You Go, Bernadette ? , an adaptation of the Maria Semple novel, that'll be released in August 2019.
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