Our can-do Cate honoured again

By Sid Astbury, Feb 23, 2008, 18:27 GMT

Australian actress Cate Blanchett arrives at an advanced screening of her new movie I\'m Not There, directed by YS filmmaker Todd Haynes, at the Sydney Theatre in Sydney, Australia, 04 December 2007. EPA/TRACEY NEARMY

Sydney - Australia's Cate Blanchett, twice nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Britain's Queen Elizabeth I in feature films a remarkable nine years apart, likes making lists and keeping account of where she is in life.

There are ticks in most boxes ­ just as Felicity Donnoli, her Melbourne high school drama teacher, predicted there would be.

'I'm not surprised at all at the level of her success with acting, but she would've been equally successful if she'd chosen to run the World Bank,' Donnoli said. 'She was always going to be a sensational human being and a great woman, whatever she chose to do.'

Sandwiched between the nominations was the Oscar she won for the role of fellow screen goddess Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.

And there's also the other nomination: for being one of the six Bob Dylans in Todd Hayne's biopic of the protean singer-songwriter I'm Not There.

'It's striking that Haynes employed an Australian woman, Cate Blanchett, to play the character most clearly and literally based on Dylan,' said Brendan O'Neill, editor of British internet magazine spiked.

Haynes must have thought that someone talented enough to play the virgin queen and a screen goddess could easily manage a man.

Leaving school, Blanchett beat hundreds of other hopefuls to a place at NIDA, Australia's most prestigious drama school. She graduated in 1992 and within a year was winning awards as a stage actor at the venerable Sydney Theatre Company (STC), the de facto national theatre company.

And the plaudits have not stopped.

'Cate Blanchett is the female actor of her generation,' swooned Richard Jinman, arts editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. 'Intelligence, luminosity, and a chameleon-like ability to play a queen and a former heroin addict with equal conviction, have earned her a stellar reputation in Hollywood and beyond.'

It's true: critic Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun Times, said any other actor would have been diminished by the splendour of the court of Elizabeth. 'That Blanchett could appear in the same Toronto Film Festival playing Elizabeth and Bob Dylan, both splendidly, is a wonder of acting,' Ebert wrote.

But there's more.

This year Blanchett and husband Andrew Upton became co-artistic directors of the STC. It's supposed to be a full-time job and there are understandable concerns that film commitments will get in the way of her directing.

When the appointments were made last year, a roar of disapproval went up because neither Blanchett nor Upton had directing experience. She's an actor and he's a playwright.

Another sore point was that the glamourous pair were parachuted into their positions rather than having to beat other contenders in an interview. As Bryce Hallett, the Herald's theatre critic, commented: 'The lack of transparency over their appointment ... remains a source of disillusionment among a number of Australia's theatre directors.' An STC actor was so incensed, he left the company.

Blanchett, now pregnant with her third child, likes to be busy. She's an environmental crusader ­ despite all that furious Hollywood- style jetting about and ownership of a massive house in Sydney's swank Hunters Hill.

Blanchett is also a political activist. She campaigned for the Labor Party, which has just taken office in Australia after nearly 13 years in opposition. But like other successful and highly-paid film stars, Blanchett earns money on the side by plugging skin cream and designer clothes.

Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister, has invited 1,000 of the country's 'best and brightest' to a weekend summit in April to help thrash out a new direction for Australia. A certainty for that gig is 38-year-old Blanchett. She's tipped to be among the movers and shakers.