Cate Blanchett Doesn't Give It Away

Cinecultist is a bit behind on our New Yorker reading and only just got to John Lahr's great piece in last week's issue about Cate Blanchett (unfortunately not available online now). That woman seriously rocks it on screen, and from this interview appears to be a stellar wife and mother to boot. The following description of her acting process while working on The Good German reinvigorated our interest in seeing Steven Soderbergh's poorly reviewed movie.

"...[S]he began shooting, without any rehearsal, the Monday after she'd completed Notes on a Scandal. The scene Blanchett filmed that day had Lena sitting on a bench with an American military attorney from whom she's hoping to get the papers she needs to leave Berlin. 'I thought, 'The biggest thing I'm gonna do is cross my legs,' she told me. 'I'm not gonna give anything away to this man. I knew everything that Lena was concealing. But it was, like, I'm not going to let Steven Soderbergh know. I'm going to be completely, utterly ambiguous.' She continued, 'Ambiguity is not absence. It's a wildly contradicting series of actions, emotions, and intentions. There was a line where Lena said, 'No one is all good or all bad.' And I thought that she was referring to herself. So I let a tiny little bit of her own self-hatred come through.' (Soderbergh got his shot on the first take.)"

P.S. Please follow Lahr's suggestion to watch Blanchett in Oscar and Lucinda if you've never seen it. You'll see why it was such a breakout role for her and Ralph Fiennes is great in it too.