Seven Other Times Cate Blanchett Was The Greatest

Last night The Project aired an interview between legendary Australian actress Cate Blanchett and reporter-turned-international laughing stock Jonathan Hyla, which sent the internet into a rabid state of schadenfreude.

In the shortened clip it seemed as though his questions were awful and she clearly didn’t give one single fuck; the whole thing slowly careened toward mayhem and ended with her dropping a disgruntled F-bomb and him spectacularly failing at this high-five.

But, the full clip which has just been realised proves it was all in good fun. They’re actually two big cuties choosing to have fun with what would otherwise be a boring PR-heavy interview about a re-make of Cinderella.

While you’re right to be gushing with admiration for Cate for her unapologetic sass, it’s probably worth remembering she does this literally all the time.

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The Time She Dropped An F-Bomb At The Oscars 

After Blanchett won the award for Best Actress for her performance in Blue Jasmine, a Fairfax reporter mentioned that she was the first Australian to ever win two Academy Awards. Then, because she’s an incredible human, she butted in and said “don’t you ever fucking forget it”. Skip to around the three minute mark, and enjoy:

This is something she’s pretty accustomed to; after she won at last year’s Golden Globes she casually called something a “mindfuck”, at the BAFTA’s she affectionately called Philip Seymour Hoffman a “bastard”, and here she is briefly pleasuring an awards statue.

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The Time She Maybe Told Julia Roberts To Suck It

This one deserves its own category. She’s STILL being asked to explain herself.

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The Time She Called Out Sexism On The Red Carpet

It seems like Cate really comes into her own at awards shows. Last year, she got things started on the red carpet of the Screen Actors Guild Awards where she got all in the cameraman’s face, asking him if he fawns all over the guys’ outfits too.

The footage quickly became part of The Representation Project’s #AskHerMore campaign which puts pressure on the media to ask women questions about things other than their families, dress, or manicures.

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The Time She Praised Older Women And Snuck A Mention Of Menstruation Into Vogue

This one is from this week. The woman’s incredible. In an interview with Anna Funder in this month’s Vogue, Blanchett talks about her work, and the problems women in face in the entertainment industry and in broader everyday life.

After quoting some wisdom from Tina Fey’s Bossypants Blanchett proposed that female audiences are more important now than ever. “Women don’t stop consuming cultural product once they stop menstruating,” she said, to the collective delight of everyone in the world.

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The Time She Sang Some Truth About Motherhood 

When promoting How to Train Your a Dragon 2 at Cannes Film Festival, Blanchett was asked about her role in the animated film as a mother who had never really been in her son’s life. She then ruled the entire press conference with these blistering arguments:

“When anyone plays a mother on film, there is a whole raft of judgment in that a mother is a particular archetype or that every mother is the same,” she said. “That’s complete rubbish.”

“We did discuss a lot about that particular issue because of course there is a judgment on how women parent. The film actually deals with it really beautifully and deeply and emotionally … [but] it’s a certainly a question that’s never asked of men.”

Sometime before or during, but presumably not after this, one foolhardy reporter also asked her if she let her children play with her Oscar statues at home. She replied with appropriate snark:

“Yes, every day. Mummy sits them down and I get my two Oscars out and I let them stroke them for 15 minutes before they go to school, if they’re good.”

BAM.

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All Those Times She Spoke Out Against Tony Abbott

Feminism isn’t the only political arena Blanchett slays in. When the federal budget came out last year, she publicly criticised it as “short-sighted”; joining the huge number of creative types who condemned the cuts to our nation’s arts industries.

“It’s not only a potent industry that feeds Australia at home but culture generally, for any nation, is a piece of soft diplomacy,” she said. “It’s the way that we understand the way the mind of a country works.”

Before that, Blanchett starred in a government ad campaign laying out the benefits of the carbon tax. Tony Abbott criticised her involvement at the time because of her celebrity status, but she held her own.

“The campaign’s not about me. It’s about getting it refocused on the issue,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald. ”Australia is a remarkable country with incredible technical and physical resources and a capacity to be a world leader in renewables.”

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The Time She Gave An Incredible Speech About Gough Whitlam

Just… all of it. Watch all of it and bask in the most excellent shade she threw at Tony Abbott.

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