Here are some photos of the always lovely and pale Cate Blanchett at last night’s NY Film Festival. She flew into NYC from London especially for this – a gala tribute in her honor, a tribute for her decades and a half of extraordinary work. It doesn’t hurt that many people feel she’s the “one to beat” for this year’s Best Actress Oscar race. Cate wore this pale pink Armani Prive dress and Roger Vivier heels. I could do without the nude heels, quite honestly. Duchess Kate has ruined nude heels for me, although Kate isn’t the only one who over-works the nude heel (Angelina Jolie is another one). As for pale girls wearing pale colors… imagine how stunning this dress would have been in red or even gold. Yes, this washes her out but then again, she’s Cate Blanchett and she can do whatever she wants.

Alec Baldwin toasted his Blue Jasmine costar at the gala tribute and Woody Allen sent in a video praising her talents. I know many of you loathe Woody but when it comes to Cate’s Oscar race, I find it fascinating that Woody seems to be going above and beyond to support Cate’s chances. Usually, Woody wouldn’t be bothered to support his actors, but he’s putting some effort into Cate’s Oscar race. She also did a Q&A which went something like this:

Reflecting on her work at the Q&A, Blanchett was generally self-deprecating and funny in response to questions from soft-spoken Jones. They discussed, among other things, theater versus film acting (“I never expected to make a movie,” she said); her big-screen debut, at the age of 18, as an extra in an Egyptian film for which she was offered a small amount of money and falafel (“The falafel never came, so I left”); the pressure of playing Hollywood legend Hepburn (“Well, she died and she couldn’t play that role, and I was the schmuck who got that job”); and the biggest hits of which she was a part (“I didn’t know how to be an elf before I arrived in New Zealand” for The Lord of the Rings trilogy) — even if her son recently asked her, “Mom, when are you gonna make a blockbuster?”

The cineastes in the audience were particularly interested to hear about Blanchett’s experience working with mysterious Terrence Malick on the recently-wrapped Knight of Cups. “It was a cross between cinema, philosophy, poetry and a quasi religious experience,” she said. “It was certainly an extraordinary experience.” She continued, “He kept saying he wanted ‘to catch life on the wing,'” adding, “You weren’t so much playing characters as you were states of being.”

When audience members were eventually invited to ask questions of Blanchett, one asked her to name her favorite acting experience. She was initially reluctant, but said, “gun to my head,” that Gross und Klein, a German play in which she appeared in 2012, was her favorite in the theater, and that Blue Jasmine was her favorite on a film. Of the latter she said, “It felt like it was a culmination of my work in theater and my work in film, so it was satisfying on a number of different levels.”

[From THR]

“Mom, when are you gonna make a blockbuster?” That’s so funny. She does do these artsy little projects that usually don’t make money, but she’s been in some big movies too! She did LOTR and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Her cinematic taste isn’t JUST little art films, is what I’m saying.

Photos courtesy of WENN.