SUBMITTED BY Timbo

October 10, 2003 — Cate Blanchett, who is about to hit North American movie screens in three movies (Veronica Guerin, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and The Missing), talks about her craft and her approach to acting.

The awards talk that seems to regularly cling to her doesn't faze the actress as she promotes Veronica Guerin. "It's just a nice way of people saying that there's an interesting performance, perhaps," says Blanchett, in a striking gold-spangled suit and looking like the Donna Karan model she is (even if her outfit today is Dior).

Nor does celebrity concern her. "It's got nothing to do with skills."

Her knack for disguising herself with dead-on accents and shifting hairdos only increases her near-anonymity. The graduate of Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Arts explains her approach: "I don't like to reduce a role to fit me. The challenge to me is to expand to it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But that's the challenge of it."

The actress took care to do research and discreetly contacted Guerin's family and friends. "This is someone's daughter, and you are making this public fodder again. There's an enormous responsibility."

She believes Guerin was highly aware of the threat her job posed. But "she must have enjoyed the adrenaline rush of being at the center of something. I think that's where she felt most alive."

Yes, playing a reporter has given her a better appreciation of the profession. But she still considers interviews mostly a necessary evil. "I haven't got many anecdotes. Maybe I should do something scandalous," she says, pronouncing the last word in a Jersey accent.

Read the rest of the interview at the link below.