Born in Melbourne, Australia. Blanchett began making a name for herself in the theater world soon after graduating from Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992. She quickly won roles in the Sydney Theater Company’s productions of Top Girls and Kafka Dances and won the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Newcomer Award for the latter in 1993. Blanchett also received critical acclaim for roles in theater productions of Hamlet, The Tempest, and The Seagull.
After several appearances on Australian and American television, Blanchett made her feature film debut in 1997’s Paradise Road. Later that year, she grabbed Hollywood’s attention with her performance opposite Ralph Fiennes in Oscar and Lucinda (1997). In 1998, Blanchett’s Golden Globe-winning portrayal of England’s queen in Elizabeth earned the 29-year-old actress her first Academy Award nomination.
Blanchett turned in a superb supporting performance in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, also featuring Matt Damon… read more
Born in Melbourne, Australia. Blanchett began making a name for herself in the theater world soon after graduating from Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992. She quickly won roles in the Sydney Theater Company’s productions of Top Girls and Kafka Dances and won the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Newcomer Award for the latter in 1993. Blanchett also received critical acclaim for roles in theater productions of Hamlet, The Tempest, and The Seagull.
After several appearances on Australian and American television, Blanchett made her feature film debut in 1997’s Paradise Road. Later that year, she grabbed Hollywood’s attention with her performance opposite Ralph Fiennes in Oscar and Lucinda (1997). In 1998, Blanchett’s Golden Globe-winning portrayal of England’s queen in Elizabeth earned the 29-year-old actress her first Academy Award nomination.
Blanchett turned in a superb supporting performance in 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, also featuring Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jude Law. In 2000, she starred as a psychic woman in a small Southern town in the thriller The Gift. The following year, she costarred with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton in the comic caper Bandits and with Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore in The Shipping News. She also headlined the World War II-era drama Charlotte Gray, playing a British woman who is drawn into the French resistance movement. In 2005, Blanchett earned an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her portrayal of the legendary Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic, The Aviator.
In 2007, Blanchett returned to one of her most famous characters in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Picking up a later chapter in the life of Queen Elizabeth I, the film explores how the monarch handled threats to her rule as well as her relationship with explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. She earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination and Golden Globe nomination for her work on the film. That same year, Blanchett took on another famous figure. She was one of the actors to portray music legend Bob Dylan in I’m Not There, which garnered her another Screen Actors Guild Award nomination and a Golden Globe nomination in the supporting actress categories. —bio.
