Career
Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush in the 1993 David Mamet play Oleanna, for which she won the Sydney Theatre Critics' Best Newcomer Award. She also appeared as Ophelia in an acclaimed 1994–95 Company B production of Hamlet, directed by Neil Armfield, starring Rush and Richard Roxburgh.
Blanchett appeared in the TV miniseries Heartland opposite Ernie Dingo, the miniseries Bordertown, with Hugo Weaving, and in an episode of Police Rescue entitled "The Loaded Boy". She also appeared in the 1994 telemovie of Police Rescue as a teacher taken hostage by armed bandits, and in the 50-minute drama Parklands (1996), which received a limited release in Australian cinemas. Also in 1994, she played a non-recurring role in an episode of the long-running Australian TV series GP, as Janie Morris, a woman living with her brother (Daniel Lapaine as Sean Morris) in a consensual incestuous relationship. Their relationship is torn apart when their mother comes to visit, and notices that only one bed appears to be slept in regularly.
Blanchett made her international film debut with a supporting role as an Australian nurse captured by the Japanese Army during World War II, in Bruce Beresford's 1997 film Paradise Road, which co-starred Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. Her first leading role, also in 1997, was as Lucinda Leplastrier, in Gillian Armstrong's production of Oscar and Lucinda, opposite Ralph Fiennes. Blanchett was nominated for her first Australian Film Institute Award as Best Leading Actress for this role, and lost out to Pamela Rabe in The Well. She did, however, win an AFI Award as Supporting Actress in the same year for her role as Lizzie in the romantic-comedy Thank God He Met Lizzie, co-starring Richard Roxburgh and Frances O'Connor.
Her first high-profile international role was as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 movie Elizabeth, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Blanchett lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow for her role in Shakespeare in Love, but won a British Academy Award (BAFTA) and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. The following year, Blanchett was nominated for another BAFTA Award, for her supporting role in The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Already an acclaimed actress, Blanchett received a host of new fans when she appeared in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. She played the role of Galadriel in all three films. The trilogy holds the record as the highest grossing film trilogy of all time. In 2005, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. This made Blanchett the first person to garner an Academy Award for playing a previous Oscar-winning actor/actress. That same year, Blanchett won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress for her role as Tracy Heart, a recovering heroin addict in the Australian film Little Fish. Though lesser known globally than some of her other films, Little Fish received tremendous critical acclaim in Blanchett's native Australia.
In 2006, she starred in Babel opposite Brad Pitt, The Good German with George Clooney and Notes on a Scandal opposite Dame Judi Dench. Blanchett received her third Academy Award nomination for her performance in the film.
In 2007, Blanchett was named as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People In The World and also one of the most successful actresses by Forbes magazine.
In 2007, she won the Volpi Cup Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe Award for portraying one of six incarnations of Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes' feature film I'm Not There and reprised her role as Elizabeth I in the sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age. At the 80th Academy Awards Blanchett received two Academy Award nominations; Best Actress for Elizabeth: the Golden Age and Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There, becoming the eleventh actor to receive two acting nominations in the same year and the first female actor to receive another nomination for the reprisal of a role.
She next starred in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as the villainous KGB agent Col. Dr. Irina Spalko, and in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, appearing on screen with Brad Pitt for a second time.
On 5 December 2008, Blanchett was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre.
As of 2011, Blanchett has been featured in seven films that were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: Elizabeth (1998), The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002 and 2003), The Aviator (2004), Babel (2006), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).
Blanchett provided a voice for the film Ponyo, and appeared opposite Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, released on 14 May 2010. She attended the premiere of her film Hanna directed by Joe Wright at the Sydney Film Festival.
It was announced that Blanchett will reprise her role as Galadriel in Jackson's upcoming films of The Hobbit in 2012 and 2013, filmed in New Zealand.
In 2012, Blanchett voiced the role of "Penelope" in the Family Guy episode, "Mr. and Mrs. Stewie".
Blanchett is set to appear in two films directed by Terrence Malick, Lawless and Knight of Cups. Both are scheduled to be filmed in 2012. She is also confirmed to star in Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, set to shoot in February 2013 in London and New York.
Blanchett will also star in another 2013 release directed by Woody Allen. The film will also star and Louis C.K. and will be Allen's first film set in New York City (despite being shot in San Francisco) since 2004's Melinda and Melinda.
In 2014, Blanchett has signed on to star in a future Barbra Streisand film called "Skinny and Cat" which will also star Colin Firth.
Blanchett is also set to star in George Clooney's next directorial effort "The Monuments Men". The film will feature an ensemble cast including: Clooney himself, Daniel Craig, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Hugh Bonneville and Jean Dujardin. The synopsis of the film reads: "In a race against time, a crew of art historians and museum curators unite to recover renown works of art stolen by Nazis before Hitler destroys it."
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