Lord Of The Rings Star Cate Blanchett: First Time Cast In A Tolkien Role, By Some VERY Reluctant Teachers
Cate Blanchett earned high praise playing the elven queen Lady Galadriel in all six of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.
But the Australian-born star revealed that she was only given her first Tolkien role because her teachers didn’t know what to make of her.
On BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today, Blanchett says she made her acting debut at school in Melbourne with a small role in The Hobbit.
The 53-year-old mother of four says: “The first role I ever got in a school play was as the guy who shot Smaug in The Hobbit. So, I had a line and was able to shoot a bow and arrow It was the last dramatic moment of the play.
Surprisingly, Blanchett, considered one of the best actresses of her generation, revealed that she was only reluctantly given the role because her teachers didn’t grade her acting skills and didn’t know what to do with her.
Cate Blanchett earned high praise playing the elven queen Lady Galadriel in all six of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.
She says, “All the parts in the school plays that were put on by the teachers were for the girls who were very confident, popular, good at sports, and I wasn’t that.”
Blanchett, whose big screen credits include her Oscar-winning roles in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator and Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, also reveals that her plans to steal the scene in a school production of The Chronicles of Narnia fell through.
She says: ‘I was a statue in The Chronicles of Narnia and I practiced my position for so long. She was in white lycra, which doesn’t look good on anyone especially a teenager… And the stage manager gave us a late notice.
“So I was going up on the grandstand and I had this beautiful pose planned and I didn’t have time to turn around so all the audience saw was my butt, I laughed!”
On BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today, Blanchett says she made her acting debut at school in Melbourne with a small role in The Hobbit.
Blanchett also remembers the death of her father, Robert, who suffered a fatal heart attack when she was only ten years old.
The actress said her recent plunge into the world of classical music in the film Tar had triggered feelings of guilt because she hadn’t kissed her father goodbye the last time he left for the office while she was busy playing the piano.
Desert Island Discs is on BBC Radio 4 today at 11:15am and repeats at 9am on Friday.