Fascinating Details About The Iconic Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1969. Her dad, Robert, was American, from Texas, and dropped out of school as a teen to later join the Navy. While serving, a naval ship that Robert was on broke down in Melbourne, which is where he met Blanchett's mom June, a local school teacher. Robert then returned back to Australia, where he and June got married. 

Blanchett grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne with "a lot of hidden communal spaces," she recalled to 1843 Magazine. According to the future actor, "my childhood was basically me trying to be Trixie Belden or Nancy Drew on my bike, dropping notes that I would then kid myself I hadn't dropped, treating them as clues." She is the middle child in the family, with an older brother Bob and younger sister Genevieve. Aside from some basic facts, Blanchett is hesitant to reveal much about her siblings. "I'm happy to talk about my life, but I feel bad for my family, talking about them, because they're all quite private people," she told Vanity Fair.

After becoming a serious actor, Blanchett still had a childish side to her at times. She admitted that providing the voice of a monkey for Guillermo del Toro's remake of "Pinocchio" was one of the highlights of her career. "You go back to being six years old," she told Porter.

Cate Blanchett appeared to be focused on becoming an actor after dropping out of the University of Melbourne after only a year to attend the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney. Still, she wasn't completely confident in her skills. "I still thought I'd go back and do architecture or something," Blanchett admitted to Vanity Fair. 

In her third year at drama school, a late cast change earned Blanchett the lead role in the play "Electra." As she recalled about the big opportunity, "For me there was no time to fear. You're focusing completely on something, and it doesn't matter whether it succeeds or fails – and that, in fact, is out of your hands." The show's director, Lindy Davies, lived with Australian actor Geoffrey Rush at the time, who remembered watching Blanchett's performance in amazement. Rush and Blanchett would unite onstage after she graduated for the show "Oleanna" by the Sydney Theatre Company.

After establishing herself as a leading woman in Hollywood in films like "Elizabeth" and "Veronica Guerin," Blanchett made the surprising move to return to Australia for the Sydney Theatre Company. This time, she led the company as a co-director alongside her husband Andrew Upton, starting in 2009. She stepped down from the role right before 2013, but admitted to Playbill that "you never really give it up." She added, "I've been working with these actors so long there they're all like family now."

To keep her face camera ready, Cate Blanchett revealed that her routine is not always easy, especially as a stage actor. "Because obviously doing eight shows a week [on Broadway], I'm taking my makeup on and off three times a night, eight times a week," she told Glamour. Some of her most-used products were cleansers, masks, and moisturizers. She even convinced the beauty brand SK-II to create a spray version of one of their products because "for nearly an entire decade, I was decanting the essence into a spray bottle." Blanchett was also aware of the unrealistic pressure on women's looks, especially as they age. "Anything you have to do to make yourself feel better or more confident, whether it's looking after your skin, getting a massage, going to the gym, or sleeping — anything! — you should do it," she declared.

In a more extreme routine, Blanchett joined fellow actor Sandra Bullock for a truly bizarre spa day. "Sandy [Bullock] and I saw this facialist in New York, Georgia Louise, and she gives what we call the 'penis facial,'" Blanchett told The Hollywood Reporter. According to Blanchett, "I don't know what it is, or whether it's just 'cause it smells a bit like sperm — there's some enzyme in it, so Sandy refers to it as the 'penis facial.'" Not that Blanchett needs wacky facials or fancy makeup to look beautiful, as she showed during a makeup-less photoshoot for Intelligent Life Magazine.

Catherine Blanchett met the Australian playwright Andrew Upton when working on a short film in the '90s. As the actor remembers, she first spotted Upton with his head in an oven so, "the first part of your body that I actually met was your bottom," she told 1843 Magazine. Both were heavily involved in theater, but before becoming romantically interested, Blanchett recalled Upton acting like the first body part she saw of him. "He thought I was aloof and I thought he was arrogant," she told Vanity Fair. "And it just shows how wrong you can be. But once he kissed me, that was that," Blanchett admitted.

The two married in 1997 and lived together for ten years in Brighton, England. In 2022, they celebrated their 25th anniversary, though Blanchett admitted the milestone was casual from the very beginning. "My first wedding ­anniversary my ­husband gave me a vacuum cleaner and then he gave me a mixer," she told the Mirror. "Gone is the sense of getting to the gold and diamond anniversary. Now it's the microwave anniversary. It's so less romantic now and timeless," she added. Both went on to found a production company called Dirty Films, and while she might not get anniversary jewelry from him, Blanchett revealed one of her favorite things about Upton. "He's one of the few grounded people I know whose head is in the stars ... Those people are very rare," she told Vanity Fair.

Cate Blanchett was close to her father as a little girl, remembering him as having "a very dry sense of humor," while speaking to The New Yorker. Sadly, he died when she was only 10. Recounting the tragic day, she remembered playing the piano when her father walked by. "I waved goodbye. He was going off to work. He had a heart attack that day. He was only forty," Blanchett explained. Looking back, she regrets not hugging her dad. As a result, Blanchett vowed she would never make a similar mistake with her family. "I developed this ritual where I couldn't leave the house until I could actually physically say goodbye to everyone," she said. According to her husband, Blanchett "will never forget to say goodbye."

Blanchett is quick to say losing her dad at a young age wasn't the catalyst for her to become an actor. "Life's not like that," she told GQ. Instead, she said about the moment, "when your parents die so young, you just incorporate it." She shared a similar sentiment before that it was perhaps easier to deal with her dad's death because it happened when she was so young. "I think kids are quite resilient," Blanchett told Vanity Fair. "I feel worse for my mother than I do for me," the actor added.

Although Cate Blanchett is used to having her face on magazine covers, the actor has no public social media accounts. "I'm a big believer in intimacy," she told Marie Claire. When it comes to photos, she believes in sharing like the days before social media existed. "If you take a photograph of one another, I don't like to think two hundred people are going to see that. It's nice that maybe four people might see that picture," she explained. 

In fact, Blanchett is very much against the premise and rise of social media. "The whole thing that has developed with streaming — algorithms that need to be fed — is that somehow we are content providers and that makes me want to throw up," she said, per the Daily Mail. While she might have some leniency for younger social media users, the celeb declared to Yahoo! Life,"I cannot for the life of me work out why adults are participating in that s***." Perhaps the most hated social media practice of all for Blanchett is selfies. "I just can't handle it," she admitted.

Blanchett said she talks with her children often about social media and encourages them to verify sources of anything they plan to post about. "Of course, they roll their eyes," she told Porter about her kids' reaction. "I don't want to become a separated generation, because I also feel responsible for the landscape he is about to emerge into as an adult," she added.

Even with her long career in Hollywood, Cate Blanchett still has an air of mystery about her. "Cate is someone who can seem secretive. You don't know what she's thinking," legendary Swedish star Liv Ullmann told W Magazine. Blanchett confirmed that she tries her best to stay out of the spotlight in her personal life whenever possible. "The last thing I want to do is to be someone who is filling space that has been created," she said after winning an International Lifetime Achievement, per the Daily Mail. In Blanchett's opinion, "don't say something unless you have something to say." 

Blanchett enjoys performing on stage and on film, but said that these performances are more for the audiences' enjoyment than a quest for fame. "If it's part of your identity, then you need to keep feeding it," the celeb told Marie Claire about celebrity culture. "But it's not really part of mine," she added.

Surprising with her future career of performing, Blanchett was admittedly shy at times as a kid. As the actor recalled to The Herald, she was "part extrovert, part wallflower." In another chat with The Guardian, she revealed, "I used to be very socially awkward. Walk into a room. Not know what to say." With time, the actor felt she gained some confidence. "I've learned to get out of my own way a bit more. I think perhaps he would say I'm a little less socially awkward. I hope so anyway," she mused. 

Though Cate Blanchett is a native Australian, it can be difficult to tell from her speaking voice. During one interview for the BBC, she sounded mostly British until pronouncing "deliver" in a very Australian accent. This ability to seamlessly switch between accents has become one of the actor's signature skills, whether she sounds like someone from America or as the queen of elves in "The Lord of the Rings." Her impressive vocal skill has at times merged into her personal life too. "I have this terrible thing that I do. When I'm around Americans I take on an American lilt and when I'm in China, I can't help it and I start to pick up a [slight accent]," she explained on "The Project" (via the Daily Mail). "It's so politically incorrect and my kids get so embarrassed," Blanchett revealed.

Behind the scenes of producing a believable accent is an impressive amount of work by Blanchett. For example, she imitated Katharine Hepburn for her Oscar-winning performance in "The Aviator." Originally, the film's director, Martin Scorsese, didn't require Blanchett to use an accent. Instead, Blanchett worked with voice coach Tim Monich to perfect Hepburn's New England accent, which isn't in use anymore. Monich told The New York Times that he worked with Blanchett every day on vocal exercises to help her become the voice of Hepburn, noting that it was an essential aspect of the legendary screen icon's legacy.