Cate Blanchett

Catherine Elise "Cate" Blanchett, AC (born 14 May 1969) is an Australian actress and theatre director. She has received international acclaim and many accolades for her work, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three BAFTA Awards, six AACTA Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. Blanchett came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in Elizabeth (1998), for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award, and earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress nomination. Her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004) brought her critical acclaim and many accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, making her the only actor to win an Oscar for portraying another Oscar-winning actor. In 2013, she starred in Blue Jasmine, for which she won many accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Blanchett is one of only six actors, and the only female actor, to receive Academy Award nominations for portraying the same role in two films, accomplished with her performance as Queen Elizabeth I. She is additionally the only Australian to win two acting Oscars. A seven-time Oscar nominee, she has also received nominations for Notes on a Scandal (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), I'm Not There (2007), and Carol (2015). Her other notable films include The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012–2014), Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Cinderella (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Ocean's 8 (2018).

Blanchett has also had an extensive career on stage; she is a four-time Helpmann Award winner for Best Female Actor in a Play. Her earlier roles include the title role in Electra at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992, Ophelia in Hamlet at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney in 1994, Susan in Plenty in the West End in 1999, and the title role in Hedda Gabler with the Sydney Theatre Company in 2004. From 2008 to 2013, she and her husband Andrew Upton were co-CEOs and artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. Her other roles on stage include Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire in Sydney, New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center in 2009; Yelena in Uncle Vanya in Sydney, Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center and New York at Lincoln Center in 2011; and Claire in The Maids in Sydney in 2013 and New York at Lincoln Center in 2014. Blanchett made her Broadway debut in 2017 with The Present, and received Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Drama League Award nominations for her performance in the play.

Blanchett has been awarded the Centenary Medal for Service to Australian Society by the Australian government. She was appointed Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2012. She has been presented with a Doctor of Letters from University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and Macquarie University in recognition of her extraordinary contribution to the arts, philanthropy and the community. In 2015, she was honoured by the Museum of Modern Art and received the British Film Institute Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the industry. In 2017, Blanchett was made a Companion of the Order of Australia for "eminent service to the performing arts as an international stage and screen actor, through seminal contributions as director of artistic organisations, as a role model for women and young performers, and as a supporter of humanitarian and environmental causes."

Early life
Blanchett was born on 14 May 1969 in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe. Her Australian mother, June Blanchett (born Gamble),  worked as a property developer and teacher, and her American father, Robert DeWitt Blanchett, Jr., a Texas native, was a United States Navy Chief Petty Officer who later worked as an advertising executive. The two met when Blanchett's father's ship broke down in Melbourne. When Blanchett was 10, her father died of a heart attack, leaving her mother to raise the family on her own. Blanchett is the middle of three children, she has an older brother Bob Blanchett (born 1968), and a younger sister Genevieve Blanchett (born 1971). Her ancestry includes English, some Scottish, and remote French roots.

Blanchett has described herself as being "part extrovert, part wallflower" during childhood. She had a penchant for dressing in traditionally masculine clothing, and went through goth and punk phases during her teenage years, and shaved her head at one point. She attended primary school in Melbourne at Ivanhoe East Primary School; for her secondary education, she attended Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar School and then Methodist Ladies' College, where she explored her passion for the performing arts. In her late teens and early twenties, she worked at a nursing home in Victoria. She studied economics and fine arts at the University of Melbourne but dropped out after one year to travel overseas. While in Egypt, Blanchett was asked to play an American cheerleader, as an extra in the Egyptian boxing movie, Kaboria; in need of money, she accepted. Upon her return to Australia, she moved to Sydney and enrolled in the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) to pursue an acting career. She graduated from NIDA in 1992 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts.