Cate Blanchett

Catherine Elise Blanchett (born 14 May 1969) is an Australian actor and producer.

Regarded as one of the best performers of her generation, she is recognised for her versatile work across independent films, blockbusters, and the stage.

She has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Tony Award.

A graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett began her career on the Australian stage.

Catherine Elise Blanchett was born on 14 May 1969 in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe.

Her Australian mother, June (née Gamble), was a property developer and teacher; and her American father, Robert DeWitt Blanchett Jr., a Texas native, was a United States Navy Chief Petty Officer who became an advertising executive.

They met when Robert's ship broke down in Melbourne.

When Blanchett was ten, her father died of a heart attack, leaving her mother to raise the family.

Blanchett is the second of three children, with an older brother and younger sister.

Her ancestry includes English, some Scottish, and remote French roots.

Blanchett has described herself as a "part extrovert, part wallflower" child.

During her teenage years she had a penchant for dressing in traditionally masculine clothing, and went through goth and punk phases, at one point shaving her head.

She attended primary school in Melbourne at Ivanhoe East Primary School; for her secondary education, she attended Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School and then Methodist Ladies' College, where she explored her passion for the performing arts.

In her late teens and early twenties, she worked at a nursing home in Victoria.

After high school, she began a degree in economics and fine arts at the University of Melbourne but dropped out after one year to travel overseas.

While in Egypt, Blanchett was asked to be an extra as an American cheerleader in the Egyptian boxing film Kaboria (1990); in need of money, she accepted the job.

On returning to Australia, she moved to Sydney and enrolled at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), graduating in 1992 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Blanchett's first stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush, in the 1992 David Mamet play Oleanna for the Sydney Theatre Company.

That year, she was also cast as Clytemnestra in a production of Sophocles' Electra.

A couple of weeks after rehearsals, the actress playing the title role pulled out, and director Lindy Davies cast Blanchett in the role.

Her performance as Electra became one of her most acclaimed at NIDA.

In 1993, Blanchett was awarded the Sydney Theatre Critics' Best Newcomer Award for her performance in Timothy Daly's Kafka Dances and won Best Actress for her performance in Mamet's Oleanna, making her the first actor to win both categories in the same year.

Blanchett played the role of Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994–1995 Company B production of Hamlet directed by Neil Armfield, starring Rush and Richard Roxburgh, and was nominated for a Green Room Award.

Making her feature film debut in 1997, she came to international prominence for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in the period drama Elizabeth (1998), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination.

Her biggest commercial successes include The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Cinderella (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Ocean's 8 (2018), and Don't Look Up (2021).

Blanchett has performed in over twenty stage productions.

The Australian government awarded her the Centenary Medal in 2001, and she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia in 2017.

Her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in the biopic The Aviator (2004) won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Blanchett's other Oscar-nominated roles were in Notes on a Scandal (2006), I'm Not There (2007), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Carol (2015), and Tár (2022), making her the most-nominated Australian.

Time named her one of its 100 most influential people in the world in 2007.

She and her husband, Andrew Upton, were the artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company from 2008 to 2013.

Some of her stage roles during this period were in acclaimed revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, Big and Little and The Maids.

In 2012, she was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.

She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a neurotic former socialite in the comedy-drama Blue Jasmine (2013).

In 2015, she was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship.

Blanchett has received honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from the University of New South Wales, University of Sydney and Macquarie University.

She made her Broadway debut in 2017 in The Present, for which she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

In 2018, she was ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses.

She has also received two Emmy Award nominations for producing and starring as Phyllis Schlafly in the period drama miniseries Mrs. America (2020).

Blanchett is the recipient of several honorary awards.