Cate Blanchett

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is the actor Kate Blanchett. She grew up in Melbourne and is arguably the most celebrated actor her home country has ever produced, appearing in more than 70 films and over 20 theatre productions, playing everything from Elizabeth I and Bob Dylan to the elf leader Galadriel in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Jackson was so reluctant to let her go, he wrote her into the Hobbit Trilogy 2. Other directors under her spell include Martin Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro, Steven Soderbergh and Spielberg, David Fincher, Wes Anderson and Todd Field, who wrote her latest Oscar-tipped film Tar, just for her. She's won acting awards by the dozen. To give you some idea of the numbers, the performance in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine that clinched her second Oscar earned her 39 other prizes, including a Golden Globe and BAFTA.

Presenter1:36

As herself, however, she tends to play things down. She says, Every time I've finished I think that's it, I'm done, I'm moving on to another chapter. And then you have a conversation with someone, and they have a wonderful idea, and they ask you something that is really weird and impossible, and you think Oh, okay.

Presenter1:53

Kate Blanchett, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Cate Blanchett1:56

Thank you.

Presenter1:57

So Kate, how important is music to you? You've played a version of Bob Dylan and now you're in a film about a conductor.

Cate Blanchett2:03

It's often the starting point for me.

Cate Blanchett2:05

When I'm thinking about a role or an atmosphere that you're stepping into as an actor, because it obviously bypasses language and it's a conduit for memory and non-linear connections or strange left-of-field associations, you might sort of give birth to when you're thinking about a role. But having four children.

Presenter2:10

B

Cate Blanchett2:25

I think in the last 15 years, the constant cacophony of being a mother of four children, music had sort of left my life a little bit and had been associated with work. And now that they're, you know, they're locking themselves in the room and talking to their girlfriends, it's come back into my life. And it did in a powerful way when I played this role in Toddfield's film Tar. I was playing the principal conductor of a world-renowned German orchestra and standing in front of the Dresden Philharmonic playing Mahler, it powerfully re-entered my life.

Speaker 12:36

Hmm.

Presenter2:56

Yeah.

Presenter2:58

It is extraordinarily powerful, the new film. Tell me a little bit about her ability to conduct and having to learn that. Where did you turn for inspiration?

Presenter3:07

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett3:07

Two.

Presenter3:07

The music

Cate Blanchett3:07

It's a mercurial art form. When you see a conductor from the audience, they always look slightly arhythmic, or you think, are you a musician? Because you seem to be so out of time with what the orchestra is playing. But of course, it's obvious, wasn't obvious to me though, being a layperson and not being a musician, is that they're always ahead of a breath ahead of the orchestra. Obviously, preparing for the role, I listened to every single recording and watched every single rehearsal of every single Mahler symphony I could get my hand on. And they all sound different, of course, in subtle ways. But it's because of the presence of the conductor and what they choose to focus on in the music. But me, I guess I'm more of a dancer than I am a musician.

Presenter3:52

Well, Kate, we've been talking about music. I think we'd better hear some. It's time for your first disc. What have you chosen and why?

Cate Blanchett3:58

Well, it's from Marla's Fifth, which is very much at the heart of the film. I'd always loved it, and it seems like such an obvious choice because it's so beloved by the general public, and the Dargeto specifically is constantly played and so claimed by Death and Venice. It's a rehearsal movie, so we were rehearsing it. I wouldn't ever say I was a musician, but the second movement was the most electrifying to play. It's so dynamic, it's so full of emotional extremes. And when we think about the fifth, we think about loss, but we also forget the joy and the exhilaration of young love. And, you know, that's what I really felt. It's so dynamic.

Presenter5:36

Part of the second movement from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Obardo. So, Kate, let's go back to your early days, if you don't mind. You're the middle child, born in Melbourne, Australia, to June and Robert. Were you the kind of kid who was always in the dressing-up box, always making up stories?

Cate Blanchett5:53

I was always in the dressing up box with my sister. We had this game where she would dress me up, shove me in front of the mirror and give me a name and then I had to inhabit that character. But I was mostly sort of outside or on the piano. Tell me about your parents, June and Robert Kate. Were they creative people? Your dad was in advertising, I think. Yes, my dad had a rather rough childhood on the streets of various towns in Texas. It was a childhood of neglect. And he died at a very young age. He was about to turn 41.

Presenter6:25

You attend.

Cate Blanchett6:25

Yeah, I was ten, yeah. He was in the Navy actually and he was in the Antarctic, decided to be a Unitarian minister and his ship broke down and it was in the US Navy in uh a Melbourne port and my mother was a teacher and she went down to the port with some friends to find some men to come to their teacher's dance and he happened to be one of them and they danced all night and and they corresponded for a couple of years and then he came back to Australia and they decided to

Presenter6:54

Uh

Cate Blanchett6:54

Get hitched. It sounds like quite a love story. It was, it was. When you think. Back how do you remember?

Presenter6:59

Mm-hmm.

Cate Blanchett7:00

Take out

Presenter7:00

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett7:00

Your moment.

Presenter7:01

That

Cate Blanchett7:01

Uh

Cate Blanchett7:02

There's a lot of dancing in my house, a lot of music actually, and it became quite silent after my dad died. And I actually remember the last time I saw him

Cate Blanchett7:11

I was playing the piano, and he was going off to work.

Cate Blanchett7:14

He was in advertising and I waved goodbye and I stayed at the piano and then we went out to see the Muppet movie and I loved the Muppets. I love them so much. I still do. I think, I mean, Jim Hensenson was an absolute genius. And then before the Muppet movie came up, it flashed on the bottom of the screen, could Mrs. Blanchett please come and see the manager? And she did. And I realized later that day that my father had had a fatal heart attack. So of course we didn't go back and see the Muppet movie. I was thinking about it the other day, obviously playing the piano again after so long and promising myself I was going to go back and pick it up again.

Cate Blanchett7:49

is that I loved it so much and I think I stopped pretty much sooner. I I just didn't go back to it. And I wonder now, as I put myself on the couch, I wonder if it was because I associated it with

Speaker 17:54

I just

Cate Blanchett8:01

The guilt of not getting up from the piano and kissing him goodbye. You know, you always think about those things, don't you? And strangely, I didn't think about it until.

Presenter8:04

But

Cate Blanchett8:09

You know, until I'd actually sat down at the piano, my husband bought me a piano for my fiftieth birthday and I went, I'm going to play again and suddenly all of these memories come flooding back. Your relationships to instruments are so kind of um unconscious in a way, I think.

Presenter8:24

Okay, I think we'd better go to the music. It's your second choice. What are you going to hear?

Cate Blanchett8:27

This is a was an album that my dad had and um it was played a lot and I would always put it on and think of him. It's called Besse Me mucho. He grew up near the border of Mexico and yeah, so it really reminds me of him.

Speaker 28:44

Base on me.

Speaker 28:47

Presume

Speaker 28:52

Como si fue esta noce, la ultimate.

Speaker 29:00

Bits of me.

Speaker 29:03

Les amend mousson.

Speaker 29:07

Questengo mièro, perderte, perderte de.

Presenter9:12

Bessame Mucho by Trio Los Panchos, bringing back memories, Kate Blanchette, of your parents dancing together. Losing your dad must have been incredibly hard on on your mum, of course, and still with three children to bring up and you you were just ten. How did you manage?

Speaker 29:17

I'm thinking.

Cate Blanchett9:26

I got to the hospital and someone who worked with my father, my mother went off to sort of they had to turn off the life support, so she left the room. And this man who was so well intentioned.

Cate Blanchett9:38

Sat us all down and said, This is very difficult for your mother. You have to be very, very good. And it's so strange. A, it made me think about how short life was and how much you wanted to cram into it. But also, that sense of, you know, living your life not just for yourself, but for other people. You internalized that. Yeah. Of course, it was difficult for my mum. We had this little box in the pantry and it had sort of nine slots and had a little picture above every slot that said milk, electricity, water, and it was a coin slot and it had sundries. And some weeks you'd open the box and there were only a few brown coins in each of those things and you think, oh.

Presenter9:56

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett10:18

Okay, so I'd better not waste. I'm not going to have this this week.

Presenter10:21

No sundries this week.

Cate Blanchett10:22

Yeah.

Presenter10:22

Oh yeah.

Cate Blanchett10:23

Yeah.

Presenter10:24

Were you the kind of kid who went up for all the parts in school plays? Did you get them?

Cate Blanchett10:29

Well, all the parts in the school plays that were organised by the teachers sort of went to the girls that were really confident, popular, good at sport, and I was not that. So, the first role I got in the school-organised school play was the fellow who shot Smorg down in The Hobbit. So, I had one line, and I got to shoot a bow and arrow. It was the last dramatic moment in the play. And then I also was a statue in the Chronicles of Narnia, and I'd practiced my position for so long. I was in white lycra, which no one looks good at, particularly as an adolescent girl. And the stage manager cued us late, and so I was climbing up on the rostrum, and I had this beautiful pose planned, and I didn't have time to turn around, so all the audience saw was my bum.

Speaker 110:59

Yeah

Cate Blanchett11:13

It was I got a laugh, which was I realized, oh, okay, you know, and so I lent into that. But I also realized that, you know, the teachers didn't know what to do with me. So then I, you know, started organizing plays with other girls and we did it ourselves. But for fun, not to get anywhere. I think probably the most important

Speaker 111:26

Also we did it our

Cate Blanchett11:33

Creative outlet for me was when I finally got up the courage to audition for the choir. The music school was massive at my school, and there was a choir of probably about 140 girls. And this formidable hurricane of a musician, Jane Elton Brown, who was absolutely terrifying, ran the music school and conducted the choir. I auditioned for her. So she played, you know, the arpeggios and started down low. And she looked at me, she kept going up higher, and she stopped. She took off her glasses and she said, You have a three-octave range, girl.

Presenter12:06

Girl.

Cate Blanchett12:07

And so I got into the choir, and I think it was the place where I realized the power.

Cate Blanchett12:14

Of the ensemble, that you were making music together. So when we sang in an unaccompanied way, it was really electrifying. And I realised, you know, she taught me the power of making beautiful sounds together and the rigor and discipline that you needed to make something sound or appear effortless. She was really incredible.

Speaker 112:15

Hmm.

Cate Blanchett12:37

Kate, it's time for your next piece of music. Disc number three. What have you got? What is it? I haven't got my glasses on. Oh, it's the Pilgrim's Chorus. Yes, well, I got to sing this in the choir at school with Jane Elton Brown in a hideous blue dress. I hope they've changed the dresses. At the Melbourne Festival Hall, I think it was. And it was one of the most transporting experience of my life. Every time I listen to it, I weep with joy.

Speaker 213:09

He was made.

Speaker 213:25

I was sad by the

Speaker 213:38

The team is highlighted.

Speaker 213:47

Uh

Presenter14:01

The Pilgrim's Chorus, from Tannhuizer by Wagner, performed by the Norman Luboff Choir and the New Symphony Orchestra of London, conducted by Leopold Stockowski.

Presenter14:11

So Kate, you didn't go straight to drama college after leaving school. You enrolled on a degree course and it was economics and fine arts, I think, at Melbourne University. What was the plan for you back then? What had you decided you were going to do?

Cate Blanchett14:23

Well the wonderful thing then is you didn't really have to have a plan when you went to university. I thought I would go into gallery curation because I thought well I didn't have enough skill to be a painter. I'm not really a dancer. You can't be an actor. That's not something you do with your life. But and the only thing I thought I wanted to do was travel with my work but I thought I'd go to university and work out what that work actually is. So this is it.

Presenter14:49

So this is it,'cause'cause economics and fine arts, it sounds like it's creative, but it's also sensible. I'll be able to make a living. So you would kind of hope to get closer to the

Cate Blanchett14:57

The stuff that made you feel alive? I think I wanted to get to international relations, to the political end of economics, the social end of economics. I had a great time at university and then I took a year off, travelled, I came back and was in a play in the student union and someone who was in the play who didn't particularly like me and probably wanted me to leave um Melbourne suggested I go to drama.

Presenter15:19

The skull. Yeah.

Cate Blanchett15:19

Uh

Presenter15:19

And that was what you did. You enrolled at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney. What kind of roles were you getting?

Cate Blanchett15:25

Well the wonderful thing about drama school is you kind of get all sorts, don't you? I played Rosalind and As You Like It and Violin, Twelfth Night and Elektra in my final year. And your first job out of drama school was as a script reader for a casting agent? Oh yes it was. Liz Mulliner. Did you learn a lot doing that? I didn't work when I first left drama school and she had seen me throughout the course of, you know, the productions I'd done there and really believed in me. So she brought me in as a reader to read opposite people in their auditions.

Cate Blanchett15:56

And it was extraordinary from an anthropological perspective, but also from a work perspective, you realize the energy, the way people walked into the room, they'd got the job or not. But I also realized when they left the room that whether you got the job or not wasn't entirely dependent upon what you'd done. It wasn't personal.

Speaker 116:07

Yeah.

Presenter16:07

Hmm.

Presenter16:15

Was that liberating to you?

Cate Blanchett16:16

It was really liberating, and I think it allowed me to have a bit more devil-may care attitude when, in fact, I eventually got an audition myself. It's time for your fourth choice today, Kate. What have you gone for?

Presenter16:28

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett16:29

Oh, this is a song by Nick Cave, a fellow Melbourne. You know, I grew up with Nick, not literally grew up with Nick, but.

Cate Blanchett16:37

You know, going to listen to him play in St Kilda at the Esplanade and the Prince of Wales, the POW.

Cate Blanchett16:45

He's been a huge influence on me, I think. You know, we finally ended up in the same seaside town here, and that's where we met.

Cate Blanchett16:52

It's been important to my understanding of what's been impossible because he's constantly

Cate Blanchett16:56

Evolving. He's not frightened at being at the eye of the storm. He's not frightened of.

Cate Blanchett17:02

The brutality of being alive, but he's also so alive to moments of beauty. And I think that these walls of sound that he is creating.

Cate Blanchett17:11

you know, and lately, um

Cate Blanchett17:14

With Warren Ellis, I find so profoundly moving. I mean, talk about being inside a Turner painting.

Speaker 117:20

Eighty

Cate Blanchett17:21

You know, I really feel that that's where he creatively lives. And this particular piece of music, he's had so many bands, but this is from Grinderman.

Presenter17:32

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett17:32

We done our thing.

Speaker 117:36

We have evolved.

Speaker 117:39

We're up on our hind legs.

Speaker 117:43

The problem solved.

Speaker 117:47

We are artists.

Speaker 117:50

We are mathematicians.

Speaker 117:54

Some of us hold extremely.

Speaker 117:57

High positions.

Presenter18:01

Nick Cave, Grind Man and Go Tell the Women.

Presenter18:06

So Kate Blanchett, you were winning all sorts of awards for your theatre work. Then in nineteen ninety seven you were cast in your first leading film role opposite Ray Fiennes in Oscar and Lucinda. What were the main differences between inhabiting a character on stage and on camera?

Cate Blanchett18:22

I realised that, you know, obviously if you're lucky in the theatre, you get five weeks rehearsal. If you're lucky in a film, you might get five takes. And so what you have to do is you have to rehearse with each take like you would each week. But also what I realised very quickly too is that what you do in hopefully by in the first read-through of a play is that you'll all make this collective discovery and you go, oh, this is going to be amazing. And then by week three, you're all weeping, thinking this is a disaster. And then you refind it so you can repeat it. But of course, what film captures is that moment of discovery, which is really exciting.

Speaker 118:30

Hmm.

Speaker 218:45

Ah!

Speaker 118:47

Uh

Presenter18:59

Your international breakthrough arrived barely five years after graduating, Kate. You took on the role of Elizabeth I. Now you've played her twice and are actually the first actor to be Oscar nominated both times when reprising a role. What research did you do when preparing to play her?

Cate Blanchett19:15

British Library There were many sort of examples of her handwriting on various documents. And watching her handwriting change from the letter that she wrote to her brother to beg for her life when she was imprisoned to a document she was writing to a French ambassador when she was very sort of late in her life, and watching the handwriting.

Cate Blanchett19:36

become increasingly shaky, I understood

Cate Blanchett19:40

Something that I can't even put into words. I could say it was kind of the length of her reign, the amount of personal sacrifice that she'd had to make. And then I started to think about everything that had gone on under her when she was on the throne. And then I saw.

Cate Blanchett19:56

A picture of the red dress that she wore in Parliament. And it was photographed from all angles. And in the back, which of course wouldn't be seen by the public, you could see how it was let out as her body changed. And so I realised, in fact, it was the difference between what she was presenting to the public and what was actually happening to her body.

Presenter20:17

Another real person that you played was a version of Bob Dylan, actually a pretty unreal person, Jude Quinn, in Todd Haines's I'm Not There. So six different actors with their own portrayals of Dylan, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Ben Wishaw and you. How did you approach playing a man? Was it different?

Cate Blanchett20:35

I played him at the time when he went electric, when he was really giving the finger to the audience and saying, I'm not a folk singer, I'm going to do this. And I think I started with the reaction of the audience to him when he made that transition. But playing a man.

Cate Blanchett20:50

Was it a man, or was it a sort of a musical force? You realise that in that particular film that the character was made up of many different parts.

Cate Blanchett20:59

A friend of mine who's a make-up artist said to me a few days into the shoot, she went, put a sock down your pants.

Cate Blanchett21:06

I said what? She had

Cate Blanchett21:07

You're on the bed, put a sock down your pants. And I went, oh, okay. And I did, and I didn't look back.

Cate Blanchett21:13

It helped. Yeah, it absolutely helped.

Presenter21:18

Alright Kate, it's time for some more music. Your fifth selection. What are we gonna hear? This is a song I definitely have to take to

Cate Blanchett21:23

design. It's by a band called I Am Clute and it's called Proof. And I can't tell you why, but it's just become my song with my husband. And I I think'cause we were traveling so much in the early years of our relationship and then with our kids we were always traveling and and it was so painful being apart even for

Cate Blanchett21:45

An hour, for a day, for a week. It's just this strange little song, and my kids have taken it over. So whenever things, you know, get tense at home and someone hasn't done their homework or taken the garbage out, the kids will put this song on and everything falls away and everyone just starts dancing.

Speaker 222:01

Swell, we're living in a hotel

Speaker 222:05

Someone's ringing my bell, the room without a view.

Speaker 222:11

Hey.

Speaker 222:13

Heard you read another poem?

Speaker 222:16

Take another look, who am I?

Speaker 222:23

Without you.

Speaker 222:31

Ah

Presenter22:35

I am Clute and proof, Kate Blanchett, for your husband Andrew Upton. So in 2008, you and he returned to Australia to be co-CEOs and artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. It was a move that surprised some people in the film industry at the time. What were you looking for creatively at that point in your life?

Cate Blanchett22:55

I don't know that I was conscious of what I was looking for creatively. It was just an opportunity that was presented to Andrew actually, and and then he asked if I you know, we wanted to do it together. The only thing that would have stopped me doing it was fear. But of course, you know, it seemed like to a lot of people in the film industry

Presenter23:14

Hmm.

Cate Blanchett23:14

In your late 30s, deciding to go back and run a theater company.

Presenter23:14

Uh

Presenter23:18

Also, 2007, you were up for like two different Oscars for two different roles. I mean if you were

Cate Blanchett23:22

It's a very magnetic country, Australia. I mean, a lot of people leave. Your biggest fear in Australia is that you're going to get in the back of a taxi and someone is going to ask you what you do and you're going to have to tell them you're an actor and they're going to ask you what you've been in and they won't have seen it or you're a writer or you're a painter. Being an artist in Australia is quite a brutal experience. But maybe that's why it makes us really robust and curious.

Presenter23:49

A brutal experience in the way that you have to kind of justify it, do you mean?

Cate Blanchett23:52

Yes, we don't really appreciate what we've got culturally in Australia. I mean, oftentimes we don't really admire it or revere it or consume it it's a terrible word for culture, consuming culture until it's been exported and rein

Presenter24:08

Kate, in 2014 you won your second Oscar for your performance as Jasmine Frances in the film Blue Jasmine. Now in your acceptance speech at the time you said that films with women as lead characters shouldn't be considered niche, that they do make money, people do want to go and see them. Do you think things have improved since then?

Cate Blanchett24:28

At the time that I said that, films, stories with women at their centre were still referred to as women's films, as if a female experience couldn't be a human experience. And often there would be an extraordinary life that was turned into a film with a female at the centre, but the story around them didn't support the weight of the life, so it became what's called a biopic. Whereas if you make a, you know, Oliver Stone makes a film about JFK, he's making it about something so that you're part of something. And I think that that has really changed. Obviously, there are many more female writers and female producers. I still think that the male-to-female ratio of crew members on set needs to be addressed. And I think it's stopped being talked about like it's a fashionable thing, which is a big advance. But one does feel, particularly in the American film industry, that you do need to keep this unfortunately politicised, particularly when the Equal Rights Amendment still hasn't been ratified. It's time for your next disc, Kate. What's your choice, number six? What are we going to hear?

Speaker 125:15

Mm.

Cate Blanchett25:33

This is Blow the Wind Southerly by Kathleen Ferrier. One of the great voices. I mean, I think th if I was on a desert island, I think something I would profoundly miss would be

Cate Blanchett25:44

the human voice. And um I remember seeing Terence Davies' film The Long Day Closes and this was the last track that was played and it was the first time I heard her voice and f I was to completely transported.

Presenter26:02

Southerly, southerly, blow the wind south o'er the bony blue sea.

Presenter26:13

Blow the wind southerly, southerly, southerly

Presenter26:21

Nobody breathes my love to me.

Presenter26:29

They told me last night there were ships in the offing, And I hurried down to the deep rolling sea.

Speaker 126:43

Yeah.

Presenter26:43

Uh

Presenter26:44

But my eye could not see. Wherever might be

Presenter26:52

The bark that is bare

Presenter26:57

Finally.

Presenter27:02

Kathleen Ferrier and Blow the Wind Southerly. Kate Blanchett, another award-winning role of yours, this time on the small screen, was playing Phyllis Schlafly, the Conservative activist who was opposed to the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970s America. You were also a producer on the series in which you played her Mrs. America. What was the appeal of playing someone who was coming from such a different perspective to you?

Cate Blanchett27:25

I was in the States filming when in the final death throes of the election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and I'd heard about this woman called Phyllis Schluffly and no one can pronounce her name, me included, but I couldn't work out why Trump was trucking her out. This little old lady who seemed very benign was being trucked out on the campaign trail and he was there at her funeral. I thought, who is this woman and why she got such a central role in the Republican Party? And so I started doing a bit of research and then the people who were thinking about putting Mrs. America on the screen and dealing with the Equal Rights Amendment approached me and asked me to play her. And of course then the research began. She was a kingmaker. She was instrumental in stopping the Equal Rights Amendment, which would enshrine the rights of people irrespective of their gender, irrespective of their sex. They couldn't be discriminated against in the American Constitution. She was instrumental in stopping that happening. And she was also instrumental, I think, in laying the foundations for the Republican Party and Conservative politics as we understand it now.

Presenter28:38

Kate, we've got to make some time for the music. It's your seventh disc today. Well

Cate Blanchett28:42

Oh.

Presenter28:42

Uh This is a paper.

Cate Blanchett28:42

Piece that I came across, Molly Drake, Little Weaver Bird. And when we were making Mrs. America, we were thinking about how to close out.

Cate Blanchett28:50

The series, and it was ended with an image of Phyllis Schlafly finally putting on an apron and sitting down to make an apple pie.

Cate Blanchett28:59

And I'd heard Molly Drake's music, which was so private. She was making music inside her home.

Cate Blanchett29:08

for herself really, because I mean, apart from her husband recording a few discs, it wasn't really recorded and certainly not heard by anyone outside her family circle. She gives me quiet courage, you know, in the times when you're

Cate Blanchett29:21

You're making something where you think this is just for me and maybe one day I can share it with other people.

Speaker 229:34

Little weaver bird sitting sadly in the tree

Speaker 229:39

Take my good advice and forget your misery.

Speaker 229:44

Your tears are all in vain

Speaker 229:47

And regret can be absurd.

Speaker 229:51

Little Reaver Bull

Speaker 229:54

Get weaving more.

Presenter29:56

Molly Drake and the Little Weaver Bird. So, Kate Blanche, a very successful career on film, stage and T V. I said at the top of the programme, you know, that you describing the appeal of a wonderful idea that is impossible and then you're you're hooked. What are you looking for when your agent sends you another script for you to flip through?

Cate Blanchett30:15

It used to be different before I had children, but the first question it's a very banal one.

Cate Blanchett30:22

I say when are they shooting and how long for?

Cate Blanchett30:25

It used to be who's directing? But that still of course is the first question, really. I mean, that those two are parallel questions. I love what I do. But you know, if there's only so many hours in a day and there's a lot of competing needs, I mean, you don't have to have children to have competing needs. But

Cate Blanchett30:40

It's the practical versus the inspirational, I think.

Presenter30:44

Um so Kate, it's almost time to cast you away now. Your diary's going to be empty. No more demands on your time, no more filming schedules, a solitary life on the island beckons. How do you feel about the prospect?

Presenter30:55

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett30:55

Listening to Kathleen Ferrier, I could imagine there'd be the other people over there and long for them and think about them and make them present, but I would have time.

Cate Blanchett31:04

Which is um

Cate Blanchett31:05

I guess I'm I'd be trying to be positive about. And what would I do with it? Grow vegetables?

Presenter31:10

Are you practical? Could you fend for yourself, build a shelter, soak some veg if you needed to?

Cate Blanchett31:13

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett31:14

I'm trying. And that was our lockdown enterprise as we restored a derelict greenhouse in our back garden. So my beetroot are good. My cauliflower

Presenter31:24

That's a good start. Broccoli, not so great. Not very deserty. Desert islandy. No.

Cate Blanchett31:27

No, no.

Presenter31:31

I suppose we'll see which seeds blow in on the wind, Kate. For now we'll have one more disc before you go. What's your final choice today?

Cate Blanchett31:34

Okay.

Presenter31:39

It's countless.

Cate Blanchett31:40

Basi

Presenter31:41

Yeah.

Presenter31:42

Yeah.

Cate Blanchett31:42

and his orchestra playing Little Darling. And this came back into my consciousness because it was Todd Field put it in tar, my character is dancing with her wife to try and calm her down. And this is about 60 beats a minute, which of course is a very calm and romantic and thoughtful place to be. And I played it to my mum because she wanted to hear it because she'd seen the film and said, what's that piece of music? And she just started moving again. And we danced together in the kitchen the other night, which is a really strong memory from my childhood of dancing with my mum to various jazz recordings.

Cate Blanchett32:22

It's a sweet memory and it's a it's a really beautiful piece of music.

Presenter33:23

Lil Darling, Count Basie and his orchestra. Kate Blanchett, it's time to cast you away. You have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to keep you company. You can have another book too. What would you like?

Cate Blanchett33:35

Gosh, there's so many I haven't read. But I think.

Cate Blanchett33:40

Ultimately, the thing that would be hardest to maintain if you were by yourself on a desert island would be hope.

Cate Blanchett33:46

And a writer I've been delving into a lot lately has been Rebecca Solnit, particularly over the pandemic, because she talks about hope as a gift that you don't have to surrender. I think she refers to it as a power that you don't have to give away. And so she's a strong advocate for hope in the face of climate catastrophe, in the face of monumental abuses of human rights, that we do have the ability to hope collectively and act collectively. And so I find her writing really inspiring. Is there a particular collection of hers, or would you just like the biggest one we can find? It's probably her book Hope in the Dark while we're talking.

Presenter34:26

Talking about hope Uh

Presenter34:27

Wonderful. You can also have a luxury item. What will that be?

Cate Blanchett34:31

Gold.

Cate Blanchett34:33

Yeah.

Presenter34:33

I don't.

Cate Blanchett34:33

No, I do like peanuts, but I I think it would be time if that's not too abstract. I'd love to know what having

Cate Blanchett34:42

that long, elastic, unbounded sense of time would be, and what I would fill it with. I mean, that would be the biggest surprise.

Presenter34:51

I guess the only question is how much you would Like shall I just As much as you need? As much time as I

Cate Blanchett34:55

I made

Presenter34:56

Uh

Cate Blanchett34:56

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter34:57

In the hope that I would one day be rescued. Well, I love the idea of that, Kate. It is yours. I also have to ask you maybe the most difficult question of all. If you had to rush to save just one disk from the waves out of the eight that you've chosen today, what would you go for?

Cate Blanchett34:59

There's not K.

Cate Blanchett35:09

Today

Cate Blanchett35:10

In the end, I'd have to say the Pilgrim's Chorus because it contains the longing for my family as well.

Cate Blanchett35:18

Cape.

Presenter35:19

Blanchett, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, thanks for having me.

Presenter35:37

Hello, I hope that Kate's very happy on the island with all the time that she needs there. There are more than 2,000 programmes in our archive which you can listen to. We've cast away many actors over the years, including Dame Judy Dench and Glenda Jackson, who've also played Queen Elizabeth I. You can find their programmes if you search through BBC Sounds or on our own Desert Island Disc's website. The studio manager for today's programme was Andrew Garrett, and the producer was Sarah Taylor. Next time, my guest will be the film director, Steven Spielberg. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 136:40

Hello, it's Chris Van Tulliken here, my brother Zond. That's me. I'm here too. And I are back. Now, in series two of our Radio 4 podcast, A Thorough Examination, we are on a mission to find out whether or not people can change. It's called Can I Change? We're thinking about all the things we want to change about ourselves and each other. Wait, what?

Speaker 137:01

I want to be more confident, I'd like to be less of a people pleaser.

Speaker 137:05

I'd like to be more of an extrovert, but then sometimes I also think I should shut up.

Speaker 137:10

A quiet, confident man. That's very attractive. Yeah, quite like a quiet confidence.

Speaker 237:11

Yeah, cool.

Speaker 137:20

I think everyone has something they'd like to change about themselves. Change is important to me because I think it's going to improve the key relationships in my life and one of those is you, Zand. You can change whatever you like, just don't make me do it again. Well, nonetheless, Zond, we are going to speak to some experts who are going to guide us through the idea of change. The last time you made me do this, it changed my life for the better. Yeah, but I still don't want to do it.

Cate Blanchett37:45

Yeah.

Speaker 137:53

And if you at home think there's something stuck in your life that needs changing, this might be helpful for you too. Search for a thorough examination with Doctors Chris and Zarand on BBC Sounds.