CATE BLANCHETT

CATE BLANCHETT plays the title role of Charlotte Gray, a young Scottish woman who is unexpectedly drawn into a special operation with the French Resistance when her lover, a British pilot, is shot down over France. Blanchett began her acting career as a student at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art, after completing her undergraduate study in art history and economics at Melbourne University.

Blanchett graduated from the NIDA in 1992 and began appearing on television and in theatrical productions staged at the Sydney Theatre Company. Two years later, she impressed critics and audiences alike with her portrayal of the female lead in David Mamet’s Oleanna, a performance that earned her a Sydney Theater Critics Circle Rosemount Award for Best Actress.

After earning further praise for her work in Hamlet and The Tempest, Blanchett made her first high-profile film, the 1997 Bruce Beresford feature Paradise Road, with Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. She next appeared opposite Ralph Fiennes in Oscar and Lucinda. Although she won critical praise for these performances, it was Blanchett’s portrayal of the title role in Shekhar Kapur’s opulent drama Elizabeth that first showed critics and audiences the breadth of her considerable talent.

Blanchett continued to garner praise for her performances in Anthony Minghella’s noir The Talented Mr. Ripley, Mike Newell’s Pushing Tin and the 1999 adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, in which she portrayed Lady Gertrude Chilton. In 2000, Blanchett starred in Sam Raimi’s The Gift, and The Man Who Cried with John Turturro and Christina Ricci.

Blanchett most recently starred in the bank robber comedy Bandits, alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Bruce Willis. Coming up later this year, she will appear in Tom Tykwer’s Heaven and Lasse Hallström’s The Shipping News, with Kevin Spacey and Judi Dench. Additionally, she will play the elf queen Galadriel in all three installments of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.