Age: 38 Home Town: Melbourne, Australia Status: Shackled Lucky SOB: Andrew Upton Biography: Catherine Élise Blanchett (born May 14, 1969), better known as Cate Blanchett, is an Academy Award- and Golden Globe Award-winning Australian actress. She has won various other awards, most notably two SAGs and two BAFTAs, as well as the Volpi Cup at 64th Venice International Film Festival.
She came to international attention in the 1998 film Elizabeth, directed by Shekhar Kapur, in which she played Elizabeth I of England. She is also well known for her portrayals of the elf queen Galadriel in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, a role which brought her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush in the 1993 David Mamet play Oleanna. She also appeared as Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994–95 Company B production of Hamlet, directed by Neil Armfield, starring Rush and Richard Roxburgh. Blanchett appeared in the mini-series Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo, the mini-series Bordertown and in an episode of Police Rescue entitled "The Loaded Boy". She made her Australian movie debut in the 1994 film of Police Rescue as a teacher taken hostage by armed bandits.
Blanchett portrays Elizabeth I of England in Elizabeth: The Golden AgeBlanchett made her international film debut as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese in a production of Paradise Road directed by Bruce Beresford, co-starring Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. Her first high-profile role was as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 movie Elizabeth, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Blanchett lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow for her role in Shakespeare in Love but won a British Academy (BAFTA) Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama.
The following year, Blanchett was nominated for another BAFTA Award for her supporting role in The Talented Mr. Ripley. Already an acclaimed actress, Blanchett received a host of new fans when she appeared in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. She played the role of the High Elf Queen Galadriel in all three films, which hold the record as the highest grossing film trilogy of all time.
Blanchett portrays Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings film trilogyIn 2004, she played a pregnant journalist in the Wes Anderson film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, yet again earning a nomination for BFCA award for Best Acting Ensemble.
In 2005, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. This made Blanchett the first person ever to garner an Academy Award for playing a previous Oscar-winning actor/actress.
In 2006 she starred in both Babel opposite Brad Pitt, and Notes on a Scandal playing Sheba Hart opposite Dame Judi Dench. Coincidentally, Dench won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for playing Elizabeth I, the same year Blanchett lost for playing the same historical figure, albeit in a different category. Blanchett received her third Academy Award nomination for her performance in the film (Dench was also Oscar nominated).
In 2007, she won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for portraying one of six incarnations of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' feature film I'm Not There and also reprised her role as Elizabeth I in the sequel to Elizabeth entitled Elizabeth: the Golden Age. Blanchett was named as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People In The World in 2007 and also one of the most successful actresses by Forbes magazine.
Blanchett has completed filming roles in the eagerly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, both will be released in 2008.
Blanchett and her husband have commenced their three-year contracts as artistic co-directors of the Sydney Theatre Company from January 2008. Their contracts include a clause that will allow either of them to take three months out of each year to pursue other activities.
Cate Blanchett received double Oscar nominations on January 23, 2008, including Best Actress for her regal performance in Elizabeth: the Golden Age and Best Supporting actress for her portrayal of music legend Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, putting the Australian actress on track to make Academy Awards history.
