Good day, Blanchett fans!

We have gathered interviews and added photos from the special screening of TÁR in Sydney. There are two screenings in the afternoon where Cate introduced the movie then participated in a Q&A. She also interviewed conductor, Simone Young, after a screening of the documentary, Knowing the Score.

Standing ovation for Cate Blanchett at packed TÁR preview

There was no doubt who a thousand movie-goers turned up to see on a sultry Sunday afternoon.

After acclaim around the world, starting with winning best actress at the Venice Film Festival, Cate Blanchett was the star at two previews of Todd Field’s film Tar in Sydney.

On screen for virtually all the drama’s more than two-and-a-half hours, Blanchett gives a darkly riveting performance that seems assured of landing her a seventh Oscar nomination.

She proved so popular that the Cremorne Orpheum sold out a first session in an hour and, cinema events manager Rachell Baker said, a second was added that sold out in 20 minutes.

On an afternoon that had earlier seemed more suited to a lightning conductor than an orchestral one, Blanchett received a standing ovation as she arrived on stage for a Q&A session.

She said the offer to star in Tar came out of the blue a decade after meeting and forming a connection with Field, the American director best known for Little Children and In The Bedroom.

“I knew that I’d love to be in a creative dialogue with him in some way,” she said. “So I’d sort of already said yes before I’d read it.”

Blanchett said it was a film about power and the cost of striving for excellence in a changing world.

“It’s a really important thing to grapple with: how can we strive for excellence with the same degree of rigour and demand that excellence takes but do it respectfully?,” she said. “We’re grappling with this, with one another, in the workplace. This could just as easily have taken place in an architecture firm or she could have been the CEO of a major banking corporation.”

To prepare for the role, Blanchett studied the history of orchestral music and famous conductors and learnt a range of new skills – conducting, playing piano and speaking German. But not, as has been reported, stunt driving.

“I don’t say I’m very good at many things but I’m a very good driver,” she said to laughter. “Although my daughter does sit in the back seat going ‘hoooooo’.”

Blanchett said filming the conducting scenes at the start of the shoot in Germany was a gift: “I realised what the character had to lose because it is magnificent standing in the centre of that sound.”