First off the grid

Film star Cate Blanchett has announced plans to run the first completely off-grid mainstream theatre group.

Speaking in her home town of Sydney, where she is relaxing as she waits for five films she is starring in to be released, Blanchett is about to re-focus on theatre, and turn the Sydney Theatre Company, where she and her husband, Andrew Upton, are artistic co-directors, eco-friendly. “We intend to initiate discussions with companies with the aim of making the building self-sufficient, to green the building,” Upton told a press conference. “We are talking solar panels, rainwater, the works. This would ideally generate enough power to do a whole season off-grid. This would be the first theatre company in the world to do that.”

She recently joined Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and other environmentally friendly celebrities by converting her home in the Hunters Hill district of Sydney into a “green house”, fully powered by solar energy.
She has donated a large sum to the Forest Guardians, one of the Southwest US�s more active environmental overseers.
In a press release, the recipient group didn�t disclose the amount, but it did call Blanchett�s gift a �substantial donation.� Blanchett said she �forged an intimate connection to the land� after filming a Ron Howard flick called �The Missing.� Talented Blanchett may have been moved by the group�s role in creating some preserves in New Mexico and Arizona or the help it has provided to fish, birds and mammals. Perhaps she was told of the many lawsuits the group has filed that shut down logging in Arizona for a year and a half.
The star with cheek bones like Marlene Dietrich said �the process of performing, of creating a character, of inhabiting something, is that delicious state between wakefulness and sleep. Like when you are waking up in the morning and you can hear the sounds outside, your sphere of focus is beginning to change but you’re still kind of half asleep in the dream that you’re in. And I think, probably, I had a kind of fearlessness doing ‘Elizabeth’. I thought it was going to be the end of my career.

I think I had this whole thing that Glenda Jackson had played it, Bette Davis had played it, and here was this young Australian nobody coming to take on the great monarch of English history which had completely transformed what the English perceived to be their culture, even today.�
On Notes on a Scandal, she told the Guardian, �how I choose a role differs every time. It’s very rarely the character that draws me in. Sometimes it’s an image. Sometimes it’s a line in the script, or sometimes it’s something that the director says to you in the first meeting. I’m interested in the whole project, and by understanding the project you understand the character.
With Notes on a Scandal, it was the script by Patrick Marber, whom I think is fantastic. And I’d read the book and thought, ‘Oh, this is interesting.’ There’s a real lost vulnerability about Sheba Hart that I thought might be interesting to play. The point of the story is not her relationship with a 15-year-old boy, it’s about this bizarre, enmeshed, fateful relationship between two women. Morally, I found it one of the most difficult things I’ve done, in terms of how old the actor who played Steven Connelly was going to be; and wondering what would his parents think about it. The actor [Andrew Simpson] was of age, but still there are discussions that one has to have. I was quite puritanical about it, which shocked me.
Also, in terms of my attraction to the opposite sex, I just don’t understand women who go out with men who are even five years younger, it’s not something I relate to. I would understand sleeping with a 60-year-old more. So I really had to think about why – and I think Sheba doesn’t even know why. I mean, why do we destroy our lives when we do? Why do we sabotage ourselves?
Also, I wanted to work with Judi Dench. She exists on a level that very few other actresses do. She’s part of England’s understanding of itself, and yet she works and does things that are glorious and funny. I loved every minute of it. She’s remarkable, an absolute Trojan.
On playing Susan in Babel I was there because of Alejandro [Gonzalez Inarritu, the director], whom I love and admire and have wanted to work with for a long time. The more he talked about Babel, the more I saw the challenge of it. The challenge was having very little text and very little time, but needing to convey the entire weight of a relationship, basically, in one scene, and quickly set up a dilemma with enormous weight and gravitas.
Alejandro creates an incredibly creative and intense atmosphere on set. It’s the most important thing in the universe to him every moment that you’re there. I felt very valued by him as an actor. He’s very, very life-and-death, which is why his films have that quality to them. The thing Alejandro and I spoke about was the quality of listening. On a prosaic level on set, I was thinking, ‘How many times have I made this sound? I’ve got to find another way to express the shades of pain.’
It was great to have Brad there, to have that buoyancy. Brad’s open and funny, and he makes me laugh. He makes me think about the style of a film in a way I hadn’t thought about it before. He asks questions about the script that I wouldn’t even conceive of asking. He’s a very aesthetic being, and I’m probably quite an emotional being. So for me, selfishly, he brings that out in me.
On playing Lena Brandt in The Good German I came off Notes on a Scandal on a Friday and started shooting The Good German on the Monday. I had to pick up a German accent – I’m not a mimic, so I was panicking a bit. The film has a heightened style, and it’s in black and white. But it’s a modern film. It’s almost like Steven Soderbergh has created something unique – because the violence in the film is real, it’s not stylised, the sex, the language, the expletives are not stylised. So we feel like we understand, but then we’re distanced from the action at the same time.
There’s the epic quality to the story of a love that can never be – it’s been decimated by the realities of war in the way that Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart became estranged [in Casablanca]. And the political backdrop that’s behind Casablanca is also behind The Good German. It’s quite Brechtian, and the emotions are handled in that Forties way. There’s no introspection in Forties films unless it’s expressed externally, and that was really challenging. It’s not melodramatic, it’s what people do. Often, George [Clooney] and I would say, ‘Whoa, that felt eggy’ – it felt like you’ve got egg on your face – and Steven said, ‘If it doesn’t feel eggy, you’re not there.’ We just had to go for it.
It was one of the great experiences, near perfect, because Steven is unbelievably clear and the vision he had for this film was so complete. There was one day, at midday, when he goes, ‘We’ve shot everything we’ve got to shoot and we can’t move over to the next stage, so we’ll all go home.’ And it’s not because anyone wants to go off and play golf. He knows exactly what he wants and there’s no mucking around. I could pick up the kids from school and have a life while I was shooting.
On her Oscar for The Aviator That meant a lot to me, because it was the pinnacle for me to work with Scorsese on a really challenging role that I thought was a career killer. I knew that some people were not going to like me playing Katharine Hepburn, because it’s treading on sacred ground. Also, you’re attempting to convey some of her spirit and energy in the same form [film] in which she is so iconically known, so you can’t but fail. The fact that Scorsese was happy meant I’d achieved a certain level of success with it. When Scorsese’s happy, you just have to close the box and say, ‘Done.’ I was just disappointed he didn’t win an Oscar. Then you remember everyone else who hasn’t won.
The Oscar is very beautiful, utterly mesmeric, but I don’t feel any more important because I have won one. It doesn’t mean I’m any better than anyone. In the end, you go home. It’s the most glorious feeling, but you move on and it’s wonderful to have done it. I must admit, on the night, there was an intense feeling of relief, and I thought, ‘Maybe now people will stop releasing every film I’m in in December, [the time of year that Oscar-hopeful films are traditionally released]. But you can’t control that stuff. And my mum was really thrilled.
On playing Elizabeth I (again) and Bob Dylan I don’t think I wanted to play Elizabeth I in the first place. I remember reading the script and saying, ‘Wow, this is going to be an ego trip for someone, but it’s not going to be for me’ – but there I was, having the ego trip.
I’ve remained really good friends with Shekhar [Kapur, the director], and he and Geoffrey Rush had been talking about [the Elizabeth sequel] The Golden Age for a long time. I kept saying no because I couldn’t see why. But suddenly there was this fantastic script that had the potential to talk about a woman approaching middle age; and I thought that, if the first film was about denial, this one, in a way, is about acceptance of that ageing process.
I’m Not There [about Bob Dylan's life] explores different pockets of a man who refused to be categorised. I have always loved his music, but I’m terrified about this because I am besotted. I watch the press conference he gave in San Francisco in 1965, or whenever it was, and just think, ‘I love you.’ The worst thing an actor can do is fall in love with someone they’re about to portray, but I’m not playing him – my character is called Jude. It’s a riff on who Bob Dylan could possibly be. When I saw the script I thought, ‘This is so out there I can’t run away from this.’
Looking ahead Several years ago a director friend said I had to stop playing small roles, and I just didn’t know what she was talking about – it was like she was speaking Swahili. Because they are invariably the place for discovery as an actor, when you haven’t got a lot of lines or a lot of screen time, so you can really try things out. I think ‘character actor’ equals ‘longevity’.
Men are boys for such a long time and really don’t start getting the great roles until they’re in their mid-thirties. But then they’ve got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it’s all about playing younger and younger and younger. They start when they’re 18 and go till they’re 28, maybe 35 if they’re lucky. I remember [veteran actress] Rosemary Harris saying to me that, in her sixties, she was coming into a whole swathe of work because she was one of the few women who hadn’t had anything done, who actually looked her age, because when people try to find a 60-year-old now, there are none. I’m in it for the long haul.

Tags: off-the-grid