There is something very real about Cate Blanchett. Perhaps it’s her good-natured humour, her Australian accent or the fact you can actually imagine her doing the school pick-up.
Whatever it is, following the conversation between Anne Summers and Blanchett last week made me feel like the Oscar winning actress is a woman you can truly look up to as an inspiring role model, rather than one who exists in that other space of celebrity culture — a parallel universe of perfect talent, perfect bodies, perfect children and perfect, scripted answers.
Blanchett has a lot that many of us would certainly wish for and has been blessed with a fierce intellect, remarkable beauty and extraordinary talent. But she doesn’t sugarcoat over how she’s made a career out of such attributes, nor fear how others might perceive her success if she offers an honest opinion on issues that matter to her.
And as she noted during her Oscar-winning speech earlier this year, she’s still working in a male-dominated environment that needs a significant overhaul in order to better represent the experiences of women and be more commercially viable.
“Those in the industry who are foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women in the centre are niche experiences. They are not,² she said at the time. ³Audiences want to see them. In fact they earn money.”
Blanchett has worked hard to create the achievements she has and experienced the ups and downs that come with any successful career for a woman. Her career trajectory is one many women share. As she stated herself during her conversation with Summers, careers are no longer “linear” and the roles and jobs she’s taken have actually been quite “random” given her intention had been to act on stage rather than on the big screen. She remembers the exact point she wanted to pursue an acting career — it was while watching Frank Thring during a production of The Mikardo when she was nine. And despite her fame and accolades as an
actress, she’s taken plenty of risks and made difficult and challenging moves in order expand her career.
She has been in 47 movies and numerous plays. She’s served as head of the Sydney Theatre Company with her husband Andrew Upton, a move she made in 2008 that surprised many who thought Sydney was hardly the bastion of stage talent that Blanchett would want to help nurture. It was, she said, an opportunity to “bring to life important stories about Australia that we wanted to be told”.
Meanwhile, she’s in tune with leadership and management challenges, discussing her time as co-CEO, which ended last year and has been considered a resounding success. She proved a “young, blonde actress” could fill such a role, despite initial scepticism over her appointment. The role saw her confronted with more traditional office hours for the first time, something that gave her some insight into some of the pressures facing working mums, noting that “work isn’t structured around school pick up times” — although she also knows she’s in a privileged position when it comes to managing kids with work. She says as a ‘freelancer’ she has more control over when she can and can’t work and that while working on set, she’s always had plenty of access to childcare.
Meanwhile, Blanchett is a proud feminist, declaring she wishes the “stigma” associated with feminism would be removed
Blanchett does exist in another space and a world far removed from the everyday realities most of us face. But she’s still achieved against remarkable odds and made her own career, her way, in what’s still very much a male-dominated environment. There’s something we can all learn by following her success.