Happily married for 23 years, two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Aussie playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton have raised three biological sons (born in 2001, 2004, and 2008), and a baby girl, adopted in 2015.
After years of living n Australia, they are back in England, living in a countryside of East Essex. “Living with Coronavirus, we are self-isolating, like everybody, and it’s very difficult. We are all in it together, and some of us are in more perilous positions than others.”
She acknowledges her privileged position–Blanchett is one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors–but it’s revealing to all of us that viruses don’t recognize international borders, and for me the notion of nation-building is spurious in the wake of such a pandemic.” Blanchett is “in awe of the nurses and doctors on the front lines and it’s terrifying for them, they have got families of their own but they are so committed and I have profound respect and empathy for the position they are in and gratitude for their service.”
Blanchett admits to being “a binge watcher, getting obsessed with certain series, especially limited series. Recently, because their youngest son (Ignatius) hadn’t seen it, “we went back to reverse engineer the seminal days of “The Sopranos.” That was really exciting to re-experience that with him, because as a viewer, you absorb these influences, but then you don’t realize how.”
Foreign films are also high on her menu these days. She watched Lars von Trier’s “The Kingdom” with their oldest son (Dashiell John), and she re-visited with her husband Kieslowaski’s “Dekalog,” which is “one of my all-time favorite pieces of television.”
Blanchett prefers to view “things uninterrupted, and having only one big screen in the house facilitates that. We sit down and attend to what’s on, I don’t like sort of watching these things on my phone or my I-Pad.”
:We are really trying to make the most of that opportunity right now–sort of elegant family viewing. We watch them as a communal experience, based on my fond childhood memories, when there were only terrestrial channels, so you tuned in at a certain time and you watched with the entire family.”