Quotes From Others

David Fincher
“I always say everyone was lucky enough to be in a Cate Blanchett movie.”

Roger Ebert
“That Blanchett could appear in the same Toronto Film Festival playing Elizabeth and Bob Dylan, both splendidly, is a wonder of acting.”

Richard Corliss
“Years from now, when cinephiles are asked to name the movies’ golden age, they’ll say it was when Cate Blanchett was in them.”

Shekhar Kapur
“Cate is willing to throw herself into a chaotic state out of which something will arise. The fluidity you get in Cate is also because of the contradictions inside her. I was looking for somebody who could portray not only a reality but an ethereal quality. This ability to be both vulnerable and totally ruthless. Cate’s absolute ruthlessness is with herself, an obsessive ruthlessness about her craft.”

Hugo Weaving
“Cate is incredibly intuitive, highly intelligent, physically free and playful, nothing that like all the actors in the Sidney troupe, Blanchett is classically trained. She has good theatrical sense, and she keeps her feet on the ground. And, of course, she’s just gorgeous.”

Meryl Streep
“She’s an actress that is not only gifted and talented. Cate Blanchett is above all a brave actress- One has to be brave, for example, to play in A Streetcar Named Desire in Broadway. I really admire her enormously, and I’d really love to resemble her”.

Kate Winslet
“I’ve heard the Meryl Streep comparison about Cate Blanchett, and I believe it to be absolutely correct and an extremely adequate thing to say about Cate.”

Russell Crowe
“Do I think Cate Blanchett is the most spectacular creature that ever walked the planet? Yes, I do.”

Giorgio Armani
“Working with Cate Blanchett, on and off the screen, has always been a highlight for me. She embodies the perfect combination of consummate actor and world-class fashion icon.”

Katie Holmes

“I love Renée Zellweger, she can do no wrong in my eyes. I relate to every character she embodies, because she has no pretense. I also love Amy Adams: She’s so kind and talented, and whenever I watch her I think, I want to be her friend—I’ve seen Enchanted many times with my daughter. Meryl Streep, of course. And I love what Cate Blanchett brings to every movie she does.”

George Souris, Arts Minister of the National Party
“She is a champion of green issues, I’m quite prepared to rely on her for leadership in that.”

Rose Mcgowan on Cate’s sense of style
“I love Cate Blanchett: she takes risks, but is still refind.”

Malin Åkerman on Cate as a style icon
“I love women like Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, who kind of go out on a limb and do their own thing. I find it very inspiring and it allows you to do what you want to do.”

Hairstylist James Brown
“Cate Blanchett. I love her, she’s an amazing actress, if she’s in film I’ll be there watching it. She always wears her hair so simple, and I love that.”

Catherine Deneuve
“I admire Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet. I like a lot of comedians. I like Cameron Diaz – she’s funny and has a very light spirit. That’s quite rare nowadays. There are many actresses I admire.”

Designer Tanya Min Jee Ellis on who is her styleicion/celeb she admire
“Cate Blanchett. She consistently pulls off elegance and sophistication.”

Felicity Donnoli, Cate’s Melbourne high school drama teacher
“I’m not surprised at all at the level of her success with acting, but she would’ve been equally successful if she’d chosen to run the World Bank. She was always going to be a sensational human being and a great woman, whatever she chose to do.”

Jack Nicholson
“Charlize Theron and Cate Blanchett are very good actresses.”

Jessica Biel on which actresses she admire
“Definitely. Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore – women that have no boundaries, no borders. They can do anything, They can be any character and you accept it and go with it as a viewer, and as an audience member. That’s the kind of career that I’m looking for.”

Taylor Dayne
“I have always loved Ed Norton and Ryan Gosling. Also Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett.”

Jessica Chastain
“I got picked on at the schoolyard about being a redhead and I did my time. But I’ve also heard that it’s been scientifically proven that redheads need more anesthesia because we’re more sensitive to pain. So does that mean we’re also more sensitive emotionally? Just look at Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore and Isabelle Huppert… I’m happy to be part of that group.”

Clemence Poesy
“I have a lot of respect and admiration for someone like Cate Blanchett, find Emma Thompson wonderful, Meryl Streep inspiring, Juliette Binoche full of light and Catherine Deneuve incredible.”

Todd Haynes
“When Cate Blanchett starts directing, it’s over for all of us.”

Emily Blunt
I would love to make a film with Cate Blanchett!

Alec Newman, co-star in play Plenty
“Cate’s absolutely spellbinding. She was like that just eating a sandwich. I knew at the time I was privileged, but since she’s become God’s gift to actresses I realise exactly how lucky I was.”

Robert Osborne, film historian, on who would be todays replacement to Katharine Hepburn
“The closest to Hepburn is Cate Blanchett.”

Kate Bosworth
“When I watch people like Cate Blanchett act, I don’t know what is going on in her life, you just get lost in her performance and that’s what I hope to do as well.”

“I’d love to work with Cate Blanchett. To me, she’s as good as it gets. She really is absolutely amazing.”

“I would love to work with Cate Blanchett! I just think that she’s one of the most incredible actresses of our generation and I admire her tremendously.”

Alicia Silverstone
“I’ve never met her, I just admire her work. She was so good in Elizabeth, she just blew me away!”

Felicity Huffman, on whom is her acting idols and who she admires
“They keep changing. I love Diane Wiest, Cate Blanchett. God,I think Cate Blanchett hung the moon. I love William H. Macy.”

“My mom. Maya Angelou, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Oprah and Cate Blanchett for her astounding talent and skill… I’d do craft services (serving meals on movie sets) just to work with her!”

Brad Pitt
“Cate Blanchett is mesmerizing. I don’t know why. It’s beyond my understanding. Why we all want to work with her is she elevates the rest of us. She’s just got some ethereal grace and elegance that’s beyond me, and an acute understanding of human nature. She’s just exquisite. She’s otherworldly.”

Natalie Portman
“And then there is Cate Blanchett. She is different all the time.”

Emmy Rossum
I think there’s something to be said for women who are classy and sensual like Sophia Loren, like Penelope Cruz, like Cate Blanchett — you know, people that I really admire.

Mickey Rourke, on being angry with Paris Hilton getting compared to Cate
“It has to do with little tiny shit that gets under my skin. Business stuff. “It’s like…the word ‘actress’. You know. Cate Blanchett is an actress. Paris Hilton is not a f**king… I mean, how can they use the same f**king word? You see what gets under my f**king skin? You know? It’s s**t like that. It would make me go off.”

Paul Clinton, CNN Film Critic
“Blanchett is so good, she can read the phone book and I’ll go.”

Geoffrey Rush
“I had seen one of Cate’s school productions, and was pinned to my seat thinking, ‘Who is this extraordinary creature?’, with this maturity of performance yet who is still in drama school? Even when she’s doing nothing, you get this interplay between vulnerability and assurance, flickering from one to the other, which I think for the Queen is breathtaking.”

“I’ve always said this about Cate as an actress, ever since seeing her in ‘Electra‘ in her last year of drama school (at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art): She has that ability to be extrememly forthright and powerful and vulnerable, all within a flickering moment. That combination could earmark her for greatness.”

“And my other reference point was Queen Elizabeth I. To me, she will always be Cate Blanchett. You know, if an actor can set up a story-telling imaginative contract with you sitting out there in the dark, in the cinema, and you believe in her or want her to be that character, and you apply yourself with the right kind of study, then hopefully it’ll all work out.”

“Cate is part of the heritage of great actresses. She’s a creative person and someone who is not interested in peddling the values of her persona. She brings her own oomph to a part.”

Eva Green, mentioning that Cate is her idol
“She’s very subtle, yet boiling away inside. And I admire the fact that she’s very private. You need to have that mystery.”

Amy Adams, on her idols
“I love Cate Blanchett! She is one of my favorite actresses.”

“There are so many actresses I admire. I love Samantha Morton and Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet. I’m not gonna move to London and adopt an accent, but I do love British actors. I love Holly Hunter, she’s very American, and Jodie Foster. Rachel Weisz… Oh! British.”

Jennifer Morrison
“I adore Cate Blanchett. I think she’s amazing. She completely transforms herself into who she plays. What excites me about her is that she’s a character actress in a leading lady’s body.”

Judi Dench
“The blessing is you then – if you’re very lucky – you work with people who really know the business of filmmaking. Like Kevin Spacey or Cate Blanchett, who really have got it at their kind of fingertips, who really know the business of it. I just watch them, and I know that thing of ‘less is more.’ I know that now. And it’s something now to do with the fact that I’m so old I can get by with things.”

Gillian Anderson, on who would be her ideal West End co-star
“There’s a few… I’d love to do something with Emma Thompson, Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Cate Blanchett. Men aren’t jumping to the tip of my tongue at the moment.”

George Clooney
“I will tell you right now, Cate will win the Oscar. She’s the best actor working today. Not actress, actor. Intimidating, in a way, to work with an actor that good.”

Jessica Simpson
“My favorite actress is Cate Blanchett, who rides an emotional roller coaster and allows herself to completely jump into any character she’s playing.”

Meryl Streep, on choosing the actress to play her in a biopic
“Oh, well, you know, Cate Blanchett. A combination between her and Molly Shannon from Saturday Night Live.”

Donald Sutherland
“And the best actor in the world is Cate Blanchett. You just sit in awe of her.”

“You have Cate Blanchett there, who is the person that I think is the best actor in the world.”

Liv Ullman
“And I saw another movie, the script was not so good, but I saw an actress I have admired for some years, Cate Blanchett. She is doing such an extraordinary performance in a movie that perhaps isn’t the best. She is really, apart from Lena Endre, she is really… well she is younger than Lena, so I would say she is the best actor of her generation and Lena Endre of hers. It is very difficult if you are an actress to be good in a bad film, but she manages that.”

Andrew Upton
“I’ve really learned from watching Cate work and getting close to her and the people she’s worked with. Fortunately, I never have to say anything about her because she’s so good. We’re very honest. I suppose that’s the thing you need to keep, don’t you? ”

Denzel Washington
“You know, I gotta go to the movies. There are so many young kids I don’t know. Cate Blanchett is a good one.”

Albert Watson, photographer
“Cate Blanchett is highly intelligent. Her face is interesting. It’s not the most beautiful in the world, although to me it’s beautiful precisely because it is not perfect. Behind that face you know there’s a brain. I like my pictures to go beyond beauty.”

Woody Allen, on who he wants to work with
“I’ve always wanted to do a film with Reese Witherspoon and Cate Blanchett. They’re two people I’m extremely high on. I’d love to find something I could do with them.

Marion Cotillard
“I’m so happy the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognized the film and my performance. As a French actress, I have always dreamt of being in the company of actors whom I have admired from afar for so long: Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Cate Blanchett, Johnny Depp and Julie Christie.

“Wow, rhere are a lot of actors who are so inspiring – Cate Blanchett. I’m a very big fan of Toni Collette too.”

Naomi Watts
“Look at all these great women around the age of 40 – Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger and Emily Watson – they will all keep working.”

Rachel Weisz
“I love Cate Blanchett. I think she’s phenomenal, so stylish and a really good actress. There’s probably a young female doctor or teacher out there that’d be inspiring, but in terms of people who’re well-known it’d have to be Cate.”

Diane Kruger
“Cate Blanchett is my favourite actress!”

Jennifer Connelly
“Sometimes I find more interesting works in independent movies. I like Cate Blanchett’s acting style, she is a star and a Hollywood talent at the same time. She performs with great veracity without letting us see her own personality behind the character.”

Kevin Spacey
“I’m here because of Cate. I’m a huge fan of her work.”

Oliver Parker
“Lady Chiltern is a really tough part in the film, perhaps one of the more thankless roles. But it’s crucial. I was keen on getting somebody who was naturally sympathetic. I was allowed to see some of the rough footage on Elizabeth (1998) in the early days and I was blown away by her.”

Christopher Eccleston
“She’s got the perfect combination of intellect and instinct, but at the end of the day she’ll let instinct override.”

Eric Johnson, on who he think is the best actors at the moment
“The two Kate’s: Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett.”

Olympia Dukakis
“Cate Blanchett is one. I think Johnny Depp is a terrific character actor. Christian Bale has become a terrific actor.”

Jennifer Jason Leigh
“Watching Cate Blanchett play in I’m Not There (2007) is startling not because the notion is so far afield, but because of how natural and effortless it is. I was staggered by it. Blanchett as Bob Dylan sitting behind that enormous table in London being interviewed by the press, you can feel him thinking, toying with them, aware of his power, half resenting it, knowing that everything he says is going to be read into, analyzed ad nauseam. His boredom and his anxiety isn’t played, it’s felt. We see how gutsy and vulnerable and brilliant he is. And you forget you’re watching a performance, except, of course, that Dylan is performing for the press in a way, which makes it all the more interesting. And then at a certain point you remember, this isn’t Dylan.”

Erica Durance
“So many, for a lot of different reasons. I think the gals that I really look up to, and there’s so many so I don’t just want to say one or two, though I will anyways. I really like Ashley Judd, I love Sandra Bullock, I love Angelina Jolie, and I love Cate Blanchett. Anything that she does I just sit back and feel completely inadequate. The thing I love about these women is that they’ve all had different journeys and different pasts, they don’t apologize for it, and they all pick something that they feel will challenge them at the time.”

Brenda Blethyn, on Cate’s Elizabeth (1998) win at the Golden Globes
“I only went to see Elizabeth (1998) because of Cate Blanchett. I thought she was absolutely fabulous and I was delighted she won. I think she’s a fabulous actress. I’m not altogether sure about the film but I did enjoy it, primarily because of her… she’s fantastic.”

Tim McGraw
“I really enjoy what Cate Blanchett does onscreen.”

Nicole Kidman, if she’s the queen of Australia
“No, Cate Blanchett is, I’ll be lady-in-waiting.”

“The first time I saw Cate was in Elizabeth (1998), and I was just amazed by her intelligence and strength.”

Melora Hardin
“She is not just beautiful and talented, she has got a lot of integrity. Cate would be at the top of the list for sure!”

Melissa George
“She’s Australian. I’m Australian. She’s amazing. I’ve known her for a long time, and it would be great to do a movie together!”

Christopher Eccleston
“I quite enjoyed working on Elizabeth (1998) because I got to see Cate Blanchett become what she is and I think she’s a pretty extraordinary actor. She’s also great to work with.”

Kelly Rutherford, if she has a style muse
“I love actresses like Catherine Deneuve but also modern people too; Kate Moss is great. Cate Blanchett always looks amazing on the red carpet and Gwyneth Paltrow has great style.”

Shannyn Sossamon
“I would love to sit down and have a talk with her. What an inspiring woman she is.”

Amy Ryan, which of the Oscar competition has her most worried?
“Every single one of them. The great Cate Blanchett and the classic Ruby Dee. And Tilda Swinton too. Obviously I wasn’t aware of Saoirse Ronan’s work until Atonement. But they’re all such forceful women.”

Kobe Bryant, NBA player
“I gotta say I’m disappointed that Cate Blanchett didn’t win. Cate Blanchett was Queen Elizabeth, if you ask me. I think she was robbed.”

Jessica Chastain
“I got picked on at the schoolyard about being a redhead and I did my time. But I’ve also heard that it’s been scientifically proven that redheads need more anesthesia because we’re more sensitive to pain. So does that mean we’re also more sensitive emotionally? Just look at Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore and Isabelle Huppert… I’m happy to be part of that group.”

Leighton Meester
“I learned so much from Selena from working with her on this movie, and I didn’t even know that was going to happen. She was 17 when we shot and she obviously is very mature for a young woman. But as far as women I would like to work with or that I at least look up to – Kate Winslet is one of my favorite actresses. But they say never to meet your idol, but I’m sure she’d be wonderful and gorgeous. I love Meryl Streep. Audrey Hepburn, that’s not really possible but I do love her. I love Cate Blanchett a lot. That’s only four, but that’s all I got.”

Cadel Evans, Australian, Tour de France’s champion
“I’ve got a few questions I want to ask [Gillard] but it wasn’t the right time. She was ringing up to say thank you. Let’s just say I like Cate Blanchett a lot.”

Angela Plank, when asked which film she has watched ten times
“‘Elizabeth‘ Cate Blanchett is absolutely riveting in that film.”

Jamie Campbell Bowe
“There’s loads of people I’d love to work with, crikey! I’d love to work with Cate Blanchett. But maybe I wouldn’t like to act with her, maybe I’d like to just stand or be a camera man or a grip because I don’t think I’d be up to her standard. But I’d love to watch her work in a very visual way.”

Margaret Luce
“Cate Blanchett. She is still able to maintain an air of mystery around her while being one of the most gifted and talented actresses around.”

Michael Galvin
“I love Donogh Rees, Karlos Drinkwater and Antonia Prebble because they’re awesome and brilliant and they agreed to do my play. I love Cameron Rhodes because he is a mighty Colossus that bestrides the New Zealand entertainment industry (Cameron is the director of Station to Station) and I love Cate Blanchett because she’s Cate Blanchett.”

Olivia Wilde on if she has any role models
“Katharine Hepburn and Julie Christie for sure. As for the modern ones, I like Cate Blanchett very much: she’s a woman who have crossed any genres and who alternates between big films and small projects. I don’t know her, but it seems she’s not an actress who is willing to sacrifice her ideals in the benefit of her career. And she’s so elegant…”

Jessica Marais
“I literally burst into tears when she handed me the script. She must have thought I was a complete mental case. I was so overwhelmed. I really admire Cate as an artist and as a career woman.”

Georgia Fowler
“Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman for their beautiful, pale skin, and also Halle Berry for her golden bronziness.”

Judy Greer
“I love Cate Blanchett, I think she’s brilliant.”

Geoffrey Rush
“Certainly that does cross your mind. For her not to be able to have an opinion about a pressing issue, particularly someone who works in an industry that deals with ideas … something like that identifies the disconnect I think there is with people who think ‘oh, they’re Hollywood actors’. Well, Cate and I are not Hollywood actors.”

Todd Hunter Starkweather
“I compare Weaving to Oldman, but there is no one I can compare to Blanchett, my favorite actress. Like Weaving, she still does the occasional small Australian film, yet she continues to rake in the big bucks by working in supporting roles in giant Hollywood productions: Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. I carry an enormous crush for Blanchett, whom I categorized as one of my favorite female face objects. I adored her in the touching but much flawed Oscar and Lucinda (1997), and I adored her more as Jude, aka Bob Dylan, in I’m Not There (2007). She has the charisma and chops to make rather mundane fare watchable. I find it difficult to write about someone by whom I am awed and simultaneously smitten with. So I will stop now and simply remind everyone that Cate Blanchett is fantastic.”

Malin Åkerman
“My favourite people to watch on the red carpet are Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton. They’re awesome, I think that Swinton is just so brave and cool. She’s got a style.”

Chris Hemsworth
“I’m in love with Cate — and you know, my wife is, too, so I can say that. The fearlessness. She’s just insanely funny and smart and talented.”

Anna Kendrick on losing against Cate
“Of all the amazing contributions that woman has made to the world, beating me that day is the thing I’m most thankful for.”

Zachary Quinto
“Maybe I would have dinner with Queen Elizabeth as portrayed by Cate Blanchett, just so I could have dinner with Cate Blanchett.”

Laura Dern
“Everything about Cate is exceptional. Her environmental work, her partnering, her acting, her humor, her fashion sense. Just everything.”

Gael Garcia Bernal
“I was pretty excited to meet Cate Blanchett. She’s great, she’s amazing, I think she’s one of the most beautiful women in the universe. And I mean the universe, not the world.”

P!nk on writing “From a closet in Norway”

“I was watching Cate Blanchett’s speech and she was… is always incredible. She was talking about how many women made movies that year and how they made money, those movies made money and how the world is round now guys. And so the chorus was ‘If the world is round now, why can’t we have everything?’ inspired by Cate Blanchett…I’d like her to know.”