Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Arguably Australia's most celebrated actor, appearing in over 70 films and 20 theatre productions, including Elizabeth I and Bob Dylan.
On the island
Eight records
Pilgrim's Chorus (from Tannhäuser)Favourite
Norman Luboff Choir and New Symphony Orchestra of London
Conducted by Leopold Stokowski
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:57How important is music to you? You've played a version of Bob Dylan and now you're in a film about a conductor.
It's often the starting point for me. 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 … 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 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.
Presenter asks
9:12Losing your dad must have been incredibly hard on your mum, of course, and still with three children to bring up and you were just ten. How did you manage?
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. 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. … We had this little box in the pantry and it had sort of nine slots … and some weeks you'd open the box and there were only a few brown coins … Okay, so I'd better not waste. I'm not going to have this this week.
The keepsakes
The book
Rebecca Solnit
She talks about hope as a gift that you don't have to surrender.
The luxury
I think it would be time if that's not too abstract. I'd love to know what having that long, elastic, unbounded sense of time would be.
Presenter asks
14:11You enrolled on a degree course in economics and fine arts at Melbourne University. What was the plan for you back then? What had you decided you were going to do?
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.
Presenter asks
18:59You took on the role of Elizabeth I. What research did you do when preparing to play her?
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 become increasingly shaky, I understood Something that I can't even put into words. … And then I saw 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.
Presenter asks
24:08In your Oscar acceptance speech you said that films with women as lead characters shouldn't be considered niche. Do you think things have improved since then?
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. … 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. … 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.
Presenter asks
27:02What was the appeal of playing Phyllis Schlafly, someone coming from such a different perspective to you?
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 … I thought, who is this woman and why she got such a central role in the Republican Party? … She was a kingmaker. She was instrumental in stopping the Equal Rights Amendment … And she was also instrumental, I think, in laying the foundations for the Republican Party and Conservative politics as we understand it now.
“I was playing the piano, and he was going off to work. I waved goodbye and I stayed at the piano and then we went out to see the Muppet movie … 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.”
“The guilt of not getting up from the piano and kissing him goodbye. You know, you always think about those things, don't you?”
“You have a three-octave range, girl.”
“put a sock down your pants.”
“She gives me quiet courage, you know, in the times when you're making something where you think this is just for me and maybe one day I can share it with other people.”
“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.”