ACTOR · BORN 1969
Cate Blanchett
- Born
- 14 May 1969, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Known for
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Mowgli (2018), I'm Not There (2007), The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)
113 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
Cate Blanchett (born 14 May 1969) is an actor best known for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Mowgli and I'm Not There.
Cate Blanchett over the years
113 Interesting Facts About Cate Blanchett
Interesting Facts (14)
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Along with Sir Ian McKellen, she is one of only two actors to appear in all six of Sir Peter Jackson's Middle-earth films: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).
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She has made seven films with Sir Peter Jackson: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Hot Fuzz (2007), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). Hot Fuzz (2007) is the only one that Jackson did not direct.
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Production Story (11)
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She was set to play Portia in Michael Radford's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2004), which would have reunited her with actor Joseph Fiennes, her co-star from the blockbuster Elizabeth (1998), but she had to drop out after discovering her pregnancy. The casting would also have reunited her with Ian McKellen, with whom she appeared in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as Shylock; he ultimately left the project as well.
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She was Steven Spielberg's first choice for the role of Agatha Lively in Minority Report (2002). After the death of Stanley Kubrick, he made A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) his first priority, and she moved onto other projects. She was later able to work with Spielberg in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
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Was set to play Portia in Michael Radford's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (2004), thus reuniting with actor Joseph Fiennes, her co-star from the blockbuster Elizabeth (1998), but had to drop out after discovering her pregnancy. This also would have reunited her with Ian McKellen, with whom she appeared in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, who would have played Shylock. He ultimately also left the project.
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Cate Blanchett was set to play Portia in Michael Radford's 2004 adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which would have reunited her with Joseph Fiennes, her co-star in Elizabeth (1998), but she had to leave the project when she learned she was pregnant. It would also have reunited her with Ian McKellen, with whom she appeared in The Lord of the Rings trilogy and who was to play Shylock. In the end, he left the project as well.
Behind the Scenes (20)
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Cate Blanchett shaved her head at the age of 15 and was nearly fired from her job at a nursing home because of this bold move. Blanchett has stated that she remembers this memory with a smile years later and that the rebellious spirit of that period was also reflected in her acting career.
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Cate Blanchett has appeared in ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Elizabeth, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Aviator, Babel, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Don't Look Up, Nightmare Alley and Tár. Of these films, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the award. Blanchett's achievement shows that she is an actress sought after in both independent productions and big-budget films.
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Cate Blanchett is an avid fan of the horror genre and particularly loves the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone. Finding The Scarlet Claw unforgettable, Blanchett also counts Burnt Offerings and the Halloween series among her favorites. This love of horror shows her openness and courage toward different genres in her acting career.
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Cate Blanchett gave birth to her first child, Dashiell John Upton, on 3 December 2001, at the age of 32. She named her son after Dashiell Hammett, her husband Andrew Upton's favorite author. As an actress who managed to balance motherhood with her career, Blanchett led an active life both on set and at home during this period.
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Cate Blanchett has portrayed male roles three times throughout her career: Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, again Dylan in Manifesto, and Richard II on stage with the Sydney Theatre Company. These bold choices show her approach to acting that transcends gender stereotypes and her boundary-breaking character transformation. With these roles, Blanchett earned the appreciation of both critics and audiences.
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Cate Blanchett was Steven Spielberg's first choice for the role of Agatha Lively in Minority Report. However, after Stanley Kubrick's death, Spielberg prioritized A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and Blanchett moved on to other projects. The two later had the chance to come together on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The collaboration fulfilled Blanchett's desire to work with Spielberg.
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Cate Blanchett married her boyfriend of one year, Andrew Upton, on December 29, 1997. The couple had met on the set of a television program in 1996. The wedding took place in Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales. Blanchett said that they did not take wedding photos at the time because they could not afford a photographer, but that the moment holds a special place in their memory.
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Cate Blanchett is the only actor to be nominated for and win an Oscar for appearing in films by both Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. Working with these two legendary directors holds an important place in her career. Blanchett embraced the directors' different cinematic languages and delivered successful performances in both.
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She attended Methodist Ladies College. Drama teacher Felicity Donnoli met Cate in 1981, when Cate was 12 years old, and saw something special in her, because in her first year at the school she became house drama captain. She then directed a production involving interpretive movement with 30 girls taking part. Six years later she adapted and directed the final-year play, a stage version of the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), adapting the screenplay for the stage, holding auditions and casting the actors, designing the set and even persuading the deputy principal...
Characters & Cast (7)
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As of 2023, she has been in 10 movies where the title contains the name of the character she plays: Veronica Guerin (2003), Charlotte Gray (2001), Elizabeth (1998), The Wedding Party (1997), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Blue Jasmine (2013), Carol (2015), Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) and Tár (2022).
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Career & Awards (41)
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She is one of only six performers (and the only female) to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. She was nominated as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). The other five are Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Peter O'Toole as Henry II in Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), and Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976) and Creed (2015).
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In 2014, during the press conference for How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) at the Cannes Film Festival, a journalist asked Blanchett who was better between her and Marion Cotillard; she answered that Cotillard was better and praised her performances in La Vie En Rose (2007) and Rust and Bone (2012), and also said that she couldn't wait to see Cotillard as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (2015).
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When she was 18, Cate was on vacation in Egypt. A fellow guest at a cheap hotel in Cairo asked if she wanted to be an extra in a movie, the Egyptian boxing movie Kaboria (1990) [Crabs (1990)], directed by Khairy Beshara. She appeared in three scenes in that movie, and in one of them she was dancing to the main song of the movie.
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In 2008, although she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), she publicly declared that she had voted for Marion Cotillard in La Vie En Rose (2007), and described her performance as Édith Piaf as "astonishing and inspiring". When Cotillard was announced as the winner, Blanchett was visibly happy for her win. In 2012, Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in Rust and Bone (2012).
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Her first Oscar nomination was for playing Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998), the same year that Dame Judi Dench won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing that same role in Shakespeare in Love (1998). She went on to win her first Oscar for playing another Oscar winner: Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004).
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She has appeared in ten films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Elizabeth (1998), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Aviator (2004), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Don't Look Up (2021), Nightmare Alley (2021) and Tár (2022). The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won in the category.
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Along with Fay Bainter, Teresa Wright, Barry Fitzgerald, Jessica Lange, Sigourney Weaver, Al Pacino, Holly Hunter, Emma Thompson, Julianne Moore, Jamie Foxx and Scarlett Johansson, she is one of only twelve actors to receive Academy Award nominations in two acting categories in the same year. She was nominated for Best Actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There (2007) at the 80th Academy Awards in 2008.
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Was listed as a potential nominee for the 2008 Razzie Awards (but did not make the final ballot) for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), a performance that earned her another Oscar nomination. Had she earned a Razzie nod, she would have been one of the few actors to have a Razzie and Oscar nomination for the same performance.
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Is one of nine actresses who have received an Academy Award nomination for portraying a real-life queen. The others in chronological order are Norma Shearer for Marie Antoinette (1938), Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter (1968), Geneviève Bujold for Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Vanessa Redgrave for Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), Janet Suzman for Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), Helen Mirren for The Madness of King George (1994) and The Queen (2006), Judi Dench for Mrs. Brown (1997) and Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Helena Bonham Carter for The King's Speech (2010).
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Her older brother Bob is smart but has a mild form of cerebral palsy. When they were growing up, Cate always stuck up for him when the other children made fun of him. Later, when she gave birth to her second child Roman, she gave him the middle name of Bob, named after Cate's brother. (Bob is also her father and her grandfather's names.) And when she won the Academy Award as Best Actress for Blue Jasmine (2013), she thanked him in her acceptance speech. However, by 2019, several publications reported that the two siblings were estranged; that Bob has fallen on hard times and using a walker, and that the wealthy Cate hasn't helped him financially. They also reported that Cate didn't invite him to her 50th birthday celebration.
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When Cate Blanchett won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator, she achieved a first in cinema history: she became the first person to win an Oscar for portraying a previous Oscar winner. Blanchett captured Hepburn's distinctive mannerisms and way of speaking with great skill, earning the admiration of both critics and Academy members.
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In an interview with the Fox television network, Cate Blanchett sheepishly admitted her reason for accepting the role of Elf Queen Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings trilogy: she had always wanted to be in a film with pointy ears. With this role she not only portrayed one of the most iconic characters in fantasy literature but also fulfilled a childhood dream.
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Nominated for the Best Actress Oscar in 2008 for her performance in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Cate Blanchett openly stated that she voted that same year for Marion Cotillard's performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. Blanchett called Cotillard's performance 'astonishing and inspiring' and felt genuine joy when Cotillard won the award; in 2012 she also wrote a piece for Variety praising Cotillard's performance in Rust and Bone.
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Cate Blanchett's acting career began at the age of 18 while she was on holiday in Egypt. A person she met at a cheap hotel in Cairo offered her work as an extra in Kaboria, an Egyptian boxing film directed by Khairy Beshara; Blanchett appeared in three scenes and danced to the film's main song in one of them.
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Cate Blanchett, along with Linda Hunt and Felicity Huffman, is one of three actors who have been nominated for an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite sex. Blanchett achieved this by playing Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. This bold performance shows her boundary-breaking approach to acting and her mastery of character transformation.
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At the age of 46, Cate Blanchett became the fourth youngest actor to reach seven Academy Award nominations. Only Bette Davis (36), Meryl Streep (38) and Kate Winslet (40) reached that number at a younger age. Blanchett's nominations demonstrate how steady and successful her career has been.
Life & Family (20)
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Her older brother Bob is smart but has a mild form of cerebral palsy. When they were growing up, Cate always stuck up for him when the other children made fun of him. Later, when she gave birth to her second child Roman, she gave him the middle name Bob, named after Cate's brother. (Bob is also her father's and her grandfather's name.) And when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Blue Jasmine (2013), she thanked him in her acceptance speech. However, by 2019, several publications reported that the two siblings were estranged; that Bob had fallen on hard times and was using a walker, and that the wealthy Cate had not helped him financially. They also reported that Cate did not invite him to her 50th birthday celebration.
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She attended Methodist Ladies College. Her drama teacher Felicity Donnoli met the then 12-year-old Cate in 1981 and saw something special in her, since she became a house drama captain in her first year at the school. Then, she directed a production of interpretive movement involving 30 girls. She later directed the senior school play They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) six years later, adapting the film script into a stage play and held auditions and chose the cast, designed the set and even lobbied the vice-principal of the school to get a budget to get the set built. Mrs. Donnoli remembered Blanchett as a sweet-natured and happy girl. After school, Blanchett studied economics and fine arts at Melbourne University - never graduating - and threw herself into the theatrical world on campus. Blanchett, with two members of the Melbourne University law revue, was on Hey Hey It's Saturday (1971) in 1987 on the Red Faces segment titled "Kate and Simon", but they didn't win the contest. Afterwards, she was accepted into the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney and started her long and prestigious career.
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On December 29, 1997, she married her boyfriend of a year, Andrew Upton. They met in 1996 on the set of a television show. The wedding took place in the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales. She claimed that they didn't take any photographs because they couldn't afford a photographer, even though she was already a working actress, and in fact, shortly after the wedding, she started filming the title role in Elizabeth (1998).
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Her father, Robert DeWitt Blanchett Jr., was born in Texas, to a family that had been based in the American South for many generations. Her grandfather, Robert DeWitt Blanchett Sr., was born in 1905 in Arkansas, where he was also buried in 1989. Her paternal grandmother, Merle Jenevieve (King), was born in Oklahoma. Her maternal grandparents were Horace Thomas Gamble and Rosalie Jean Wood. Cate's father was of distant French descent; much of Cate's other ancestry from both of her parents is British Isles: English, Scottish, and some Cornish and Northern Irish.
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In The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), she appears with Anjelica Huston, and in The Aviator (2004), she works with Danny Huston, the daughter and son, respectively, of director John Huston. In addition to having played Katharine Hepburn, who appeared in The African Queen (1951), directed by John Huston, she also appeared in a remake of a film that John Huston appeared in: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
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Cate Blanchett is close friends with Nicole Kidman and Toni Collette. The three Australian actors have supported one another throughout both their careers and their private lives, and Blanchett has said these friendships are very precious to her and that they have always been able to rely on each other in difficult times.
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Cate Blanchett's older brother Bob has a mild form of cerebral palsy. During their childhood, Blanchett always defended him against other children who mocked him. Blanchett, who gave her second son the name Bob, thanked her older brother in her acceptance speech when she won the Oscar for Blue Jasmine. This close bond shows Blanchett's devotion and loyalty to her family.
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Cate Blanchett worked with Anjelica Huston on The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) and with Danny Huston, respectively the daughter and son of director John Huston, on The Aviator (2004). Besides playing Katharine Hepburn, who starred in John Huston's The African Queen (1951), she also appeared in a remake of a film in which John Huston acted: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
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