Here are some assorted photos of Cate Blanchett from the Giorgio Armani 40th Anniversary party in Milan on April 30 (the white Armani suit), plus some photos of Cate opening the new Australian pavilion in Venice on May 5th (the green dress). We haven’t talked about Cate since I went HAM on her a month ago when she pissed me off about the #AskHerMore crap. Is all forgiven and forgotten? Not really. But I am looking forward to seeing her at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Cate will be promoting Carol, a film by Todd Haynes. It’s about a lesbian relationship (between Cate and Rooney Mara) in the 1950s. It’s actually in competition this year, which means Cate could conceivably win a Best Actress award. So, Cate was an obvious choice for the cover of Variety this week, which serves as a preview of Cannes (starting today). Some highlights from Cate’s profile:
Women have to help women: “We have to push forward. What industry has parity pay for women? None. Why would we expect this industry to be any different?”
The dominance of men’s stories: “It’s not serving the audience. People want to see good films. We should have equal access to the multiplexes.”
The difficulty in making Carol: “It was so hard. Midrange films with women at the center are tricky to finance. There are a lot of people laboring under the misapprehension that people don’t want to see them, which isn’t true.”
Cate’s lesbian relationships: “On film — or in real life?” she asks coyly. Pressed for details about whether she’s had past relationships with women, she responds: “Yes. Many times,” but doesn’t elaborate. Like Carol, who never “comes out” as a lesbian, Blanchett doesn’t necessarily rely on labels for sexual orientation.
She’ll never join Twitter: “I think I’d end up in rehab. That stuff is addictive.”
People need to know too much: “We need to get into people’s private lives now. If they are hiding something, they are dishonest.”
Carol’s sex scenes: “It’s not ‘Blue Is the Warmest Color.’ That’s not the ambition of the film.”
Her craziest visit to Cannes, with Harrison Ford in 2008: “I’d never seen so many people. It was like Harrison was the pope.”
Most of the Variety story focuses on how Carol was made and financed and the struggle to get it financed, cast, made and released. It took well over a decade and many, many directors came and left the project. Which is weird, because it seems like Todd Hayes would have been the obvious choice from the start, right? Rooney Mara said no to her part at first, and she only came on board after Mia Wasikowska signed on and then dropped out of the role. Anyway… I’m looking forward to the Cannes photos of Cate… and even Rooney.
Photos courtesy of WENN, cover courtesy of Variety.
She’s bisexual ?!
Nope. She’s Catesexual.
*hides cats*
Oh sorry, I misunderstood.
Lol.
Lol!
Lol love it Catesexual.
Love her so much.
Hee
my cat’s interested, she’s pretty hot….
She is completely unrecognisable on that cover!
Not in a good or bad way. Just does not look like her. At all.
I thought the same thing!
she has new fillers in her cheeks! she’s morphing into Robin Wright
I wonder what her type is, female wise. Does she go for more effeminate ladies, or for the tomboyish type? I could see her with both. I’m so intrigued.
Shes with Upton for 20 years, I wonder when all those “many times” happened.
That’s what I’m not getting either. She’s been married a long time.
And she is now 46 years old. How about high school/college/university/work/whatnot?
meh! They could be monogamish and still happily Married, Swinging and open Marriages get a bad rap cause you only hear about em when they fail/are done wrong
I did wonder if she has an open marriage, because that’s the only way “many times” really makes sense to me, unless her dating life was super-active when she was 18. I mean, I know she’s pretty and all, but I picture her spending her time trying to get her career in Hollywood off the ground (a difficult feat) rather than spending her time actively dating around a lot. Ambitious people who get to her level are usually focused on other things.
@perplexed: She made her first film when she was 28. She also married her husband around that time, after about a year of dating.
If she was 27 when she met her now husband I don’t really get how it’s confusing that she would have had several relationships prior to that?
Hear hear @ QQ, different strokes for different folks. Pun intended
She did theatre for years. It’s like a dancing troupe. They have a lot of hookups.
Yay!!! This cheers me up greatly for some reason.
I think it’s good that she’s talking about these things. Sexuality (other than being straight) is still incredibly stigmatized and there are so many tired stereotypes. And yes, I side-eye her for some things but she’s still my favorite actress and definitely an intelligent one.
Totally agree. Bisexuality itself is still extremely stigmatized. It’s “not a real thing” or “you just can’t make up your mind” or “you’re just doing it for attention.” Sexuality is a broad spectrum, on which we can all fall in many different places, imo.
In my experience people think bisexual men are gay, and bisexual women are just experimenting. Like for men, it’s just a gateway to coming out as gay, and for women it’s just a fun excursion before finally settling down with a man. The actual reality of being bisexual is completely lost on people.
I actually disagree, to an extent. I think with younger generations there’s a lot more acceptance of the idea that sexuality is fluid. That’s not to say that there’s no misconceptions, but that there are more people who recognize this than there were even a decade ago.
I totally get your point, but I’m not sure I like for anyone to be asked such a personal question. I wouldn’t like to be asked how many men I’ve slept with, or have I ever done a threesome, or whatever. It’s getting so that people feel they can ask celebrities anything. But I get what you mean about destigmatizing bisexuality.
Excellent point. If someone wants to be open about it, that’s great and can help, but no one should be flat out asked – it’s no one’s business.
Wow, didn’t expect for her to be bisexual! I wish she’d talk about that.. because I’m crazy curious!
I don’t care about her sexual orientation in the slightest. Question. How.can she be so pro feminism and still work for Woody Allen one of the most Objectifyjng misogynistic director/producers. Serious question.
Really? Because I always though there is something androgynous about her. I am not surprised at all.
Props to Cate. A gutsy, talented woman.
Read the article headline
sUddenly.im wide awake, lol.
Is it coz u too have a huuuuge crush on her? I have an epic crush on her and spat out my coffee reading the headline 😀 And i have been VERY distracted ever since 😀
This is so important, guys. SO IMPORTANT. CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.
Cate Blanchett’s won two Oscars. LGBT people or people who’ve talked about having LGBT encounters in their lives and won Oscars are a very small, very visible group: Jodie Foster, Elton John, Justin Lance Black. This woman has played basically every strong female role available in theatre, is one of the most powerful actors in the world, and is perfectly happy to discuss her past homosexual relationships.
We now live in a world where it’s possible for her to casually this into conversation with a journalist and not face the fear that her career will be destroyed as a consequence. (See: Ellen.) YAY HIGH PROFILE VISIBILITY!!
(And she might not see herself as bisexual, guys; respect her desire not to label herself.)
Also Anna Paquin.
Yeah, she didn’t label herself so I don’t think we should do that either. But ‘bisexual’ is still definitely better than ‘previous lesbian’ (yeah, I’ve seen that too).
“is perfectly happy to discuss her past homosexual relationships. ”
only that she precisly did not do that. its three words and she blocks questions after that.
She put in a magazine, yall. Jodie Foster is going to be pressed. #NeverforgetJodiesbitterspeech
I’ve been with heaps of women and I’ve never identified myself as anything but heterosexual. I was just having a bit of fun.
being sexually attracted to both genders is definition of bisexual, isn it? whether u like the word or not
I think that you are delusionalsexual then.
That’s wonderful for you, but your choice doesn’t invalidate the way that others who are attracted to more than one gender choose to label (or not label) themselves. To each their own.
Well that’s nice but for those of us who attracted to both genders, we get bad rap because of comments like this.
Do you know how hard it is, as a woman, to find another woman who will date me without fear of being left for a man? Conversely, the number of men who instinctively envision three some is tiring.
I read something about this a while back – apparently quite often people distinguish between attraction at a sexual level, and at a relationship level? So you are heterosexual when it comes to relationships, but bisexual in terms of how you experience sexual attraction, or something of the sort? Anyway, this kind of thing is really what people mean when they talk about the fluidity of the spectrum, there’s a hell of a lot of variety out there!
Yeah, we’ve come a long way & Cate is great. It’s great that Cate feels comfortable making this statement publicly and it’s great if, in doing so, she can move acceptance forward. I’m a bit put off by your emphasis on the IMPORTANCE of this, though. I may be mistaken, but it feels to me as if you are saying her statement is the end-all-be-all just because she’s an Oscar winner. And that perception – to my mind – is a whole ‘nother trap.
Sexuality is a fluid thing. I used to identify as bisexual for the better part of my adult life. Now I know I’m just awesomepersonsexual.
@mkyarwood – May I use that word – awesomepersonsexual? It’s awesome!😍
what’s so fluid about it? U were into guys/girls and then you stopped? I was persuaded by gay ppl that sexual orientation is something solid and unchangeable, like an eye color. And now here you are.
^THIS A MILLION TIMES
As someone said above, it’s a spectrum. On one end you can be solidly heterosexual and on the other end solidly homosexual. But there’s lots of room for fluidity in between, depending on where you fall.
lana86 , It is not as black and white as that. If I was to be labelled (and I hate labels) I would be put into the pansexual box. It is fluid because it is not some phase or attempt to find our true sexuality, it is fluid because I don’t care what their sex or gender is. Just because I had relationships with men, women and transgenders and I am now married to a man, does not mean that I “stopped” and am now heterosexual (even though I am in a monogamous relationship as I have been with all my relationships). It means that the person I am currently in love with is a man; but god forbid if anything was to happen to him and I later fell in love with someone else who isn’t a man it doesn’t mean I “started” again or switched. I have always been fluid like that. I fall for the person, not caring what is in between their legs.
And it is as solid and unchangeable as eye colour. I can’t change who I am attracted to, I am just that way.
@SuePerb, ok, by your description you are bisexual and have always been. The fact of the current relantionship does not override this fact. One thing that I’m curious about is when people say “I fall for the person, not caring what is in between their legs.” Dude, but you do care, since I assume you want to do stuff to that part between their legs.))) So, like, how is that information irrelevant?
I think if you were to label me, I would be pansexual rather than bisexual as I have had relationships with transgender. I don’t care whether the person has a willy or not. It isn’t something I think about at all until I like the person enough to want to sleep with them. Then the sex is great regardless of what they have between their legs because I really enjoy having sex with that person.
This makes sense to me, maybe I can’t put it into words properly. And this android tablet drives me nuts trying to edit it. It has a mind of its own.
Ok I have thought of another way of putting it. If you are heterosexual or homosexual you care what is in between someones legs. You cannot want a sexual experience with someone who is not the right gender for you. With bi and pansexual people, they don’t care what is in between someones legs because they this isn’t an issue because they are turned on and feel comfortable having sex with either/any gender. Is that clearer?
I am kind of like that too. I’ve always been attracted to a certain type of people, regarding of gender. Though, I identify as straight. But I am not attracted to men just because they are men. If that makes sense. It is the person who creates the attraction, not the gender.
good for her. its great she is talking so openly about it. it also destroys this patriarchal idea that women could be sexually satisfied with a physically unattractive man like her husband. we still have so many hot wife/chubby ugly husband tropes in movies and on tv and it really distorts the view of many men and even some women.
Wait, what? Are you really saying that because you don’t find her husband physically attractive, there’s no way he could sexually satisfy her? Or that people have to meet a certain level of physical attractiveness before they’re able to have good sex? That sounds like a particularly patriarchal line of reasoning to me.
Anyway, at no point did she ever say she was intimate with women while married.
haha. Wow, that’s strange.
Go Cate!
It struck me (and maybe because of the way it was written) that she “coyly” drops a fact about her intimate life that will help promote the movie, then complains that “we need to get into people’s lives now.” Two sides of the same coin, or self-serving/disingenuous?
That’s pretty much all I got from the interview too. I just figured she was trying to promote her movie.
Do she and her husband have an open marriage? Hasn’t she been married since 28? I don’t get how many relationships she could have had with either gender if she’s been married since that age, unless she and her husband have some kind of open relationship. But she’s never mentioned her marriage being open…
say she started dating at around 16, like most people. that’s like 10 years of relationships, in which she could have been with anybody. i’m 25 now, and have been in several relationships, some serious some not.
I figured she must have been with her husband for some time before they married, if she got married at 28. Unless she married him within a year of meeting him.
It doesn’t matter to me either way as it’s not my business, but the “many times” part of her answer seemed to throw me off. Not that that’s impossible or anything. It’s just that given her ambition and desire to have a Hollywood career I guess I can’t picture her even having the time for that much dating.
To me it just reads like she was trying to put it lightly. I mean, it was sort of a perfect situation for her to come out, so to speak, if she wanted to do that.
I do believe her. I’ve heard “for attention!” too many times and I’m kind of sick of it, to be honest.
I love Cate as an actress but as a person she comes across to me as rather pretentious and snobby. I don’t believe for a minute she’s been “intimate” with women many times in a sexual sense. She’s promoting a movie that’s not going to make a lot of money at the BO. I also don’t think one’s sexuality is fluid. But to each his/her own. I think it’s popular now to be LGBT; it’s sort of the new black.
Plus she’s worth over $30 million and a highly regarded actress. I really don’t see her struggling. She could produce a movie if she really wanted it made.
^This
Well, I couldn’t disagree more about sexual fluidity. If you focus on the person instead of their gender, how is that not possible?
And that remark how being LGBT is suddenly popular? Could that have anything to do with people becoming more accepting and open? But, no, of course it’s about trends, I should have known I was wrong about my own sexuality.
I tend to find comments like these very close-minded, but maybe that’s just me.
@Niishku,
I think it’s natural for people to have a difficult time understanding experiences they themselves don’t relate to. The trouble is they then sometimes use their own experience to dismiss everyone else’s. Head up, you are the best judge of what is right is for you.
@Niishku
Perhaps I wrote it wrong. I don’t think being LGBT is a trend at all and it makes no difference to me what people are. What I meant is I think celebs tend to jump on the bandwagon of whatever issue is currently considered controversial. I’m still probably not articulating myself properly but I hope you understand.
LOL @ people who think that having money in the bank allows you to just go off and make a film, this person clearly has no idea how the industry works. Then again, this is the same individual that just said being LGBT is “the new black”. WOW.
@zoey79
I did clarify my statement and I do know how filmmaking works. Anyone can make a movie if they want to. You don’t need a big studio; they call them indies.
Yeah, that’s what I was getting too.
She is such an amazing actress, it’s sad that even she still has to fight to get good roles and projects made.
I kind of wonder if she meant it that way, to be honest. She likes teasing journalists a bit in interviews. They often don’t pick up on her tone and are super literal about everything she says.
I thought she could have simply been referring to friendships. Her answer was kind of vague.
That’s what I thought.
good point, the problem here is that Cate is very sarcastic and private so it seems out of character for her to share it.
Yes in complete agreement. At first I was like: what??? Trying to promote the film and now sharing this (and out of character). But I get how she could mean it in a different context and could be teasing the press. Meaning gets lost on texts imagine what is lost between in an interview especially when one is promoting and trying to keep a distance and the other is trying to sell an article.
Cate has a dry sense of humour. She could have been trolling the journalist.
if she is trolling then it’s rather insensitive. i’m bisexual, and I’m dying for some sort of proper representation that isn’t “it was just a phase” thing.
Angelina Jolie is bisexual. Below is a list of 25 other celebrities that are bi.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/celebrities-you-might-not-know-are-bisexual
yeap, I think so. The question is about “relationship with women”. Her answer could or couldn’t have been about sexual relations, I think she likes to play with her answers without giving an exhaustive explanation. But since she’s promoting a movie about lesbian relationships, her trolling isn’t that cool as she may thing it is.
Cynical me is waiting for the backtracking “clarification” anytime now. But for now it’s great that she said this, but as a couple people pointed out above, she kinda contradicts herself with her answers. Not sure about this I guess.
Women can have close intimate relationships and it not be sexual. That’s how I read her comment. I’m not sure she came out as bi.
That was my impression as well, but hard to tell with such a vague comment.
Agreed. I felt she was being coy to drum up business for the movie, She said she’s had relationships with women, she didn’t say they were sexual.
I love you guys for talking about this in a frank and direct way; so accepting, so kind. Women are tops!
xxoo
I always suspect these celebrities, when the are promoting something, and they just happen to have dealt with the same subject matter that is in their movie or book. I know, I know, I watch way to much of the Investigative Channel on TV…but, she has a movie coming out about being a lesbian, and now she claims to have been with women (not saying she hasn’t, don’t care if she has) but what extrodinary timing to promote and get lots of publicity for her movie!!!
Or actors could accept certain roles because they identify with the subject matter at hand…
I agree.
She is a good actress and I like her sartorial style but she often comes across as quite full of herself imo.
They all are. You have to be to want to see your image projected forty feet high on movie screens all around the world. If that’s not egoism I don’t know what is.
I like her as an actor. I still wish she hadn’t worked with Woody Allen.
And, I suppose…Alec Baldwin, Louis CK etc.
All of whose work I also like.
Oh Sure. Nope. Don’t believe you. How surprising she’s pimping a movie, and now her life imitates her current art? Liar. Liar. Pants on fire to sell movie tickets. Shameful for such an actress of her caliber.
if it’s true, great for her for being so open and candid about this. She sounds very comfortable in her sexuality, whatever that is. Almost all is forgiven, Cate.
I love Cate. Have always loved her. But this statement,. Damn,that’s hot… she just zipped to the top of my crush list 😀