An Australian actress, Cate Blanchett uses her own life and the people around her for inspiration for acting. When playing her character in a movie, she looks for the flaws in her character. When she was young, at the age of ten, she lost her father. Perhaps that is her motivation for crying in her sad roles. She once said that acting was about “shedding layers to expose what’s underneath.” When asked about her love scene in the center of her film, Little Fish, her character, Tracy, shows her fragileness and eagerness and how she approached it, she said, “You have to treat it like it’s another scene. You have to say to the director, ‘Why do we have this scene? What is it?’ But I say that about every scene [laughs]. Yeah, I thought it was really important, because it’s about her opening up again after being so closed down.”
Cate Blanchett is a classically trained actress who uses her imagination and expression. She deeply follows her character. She uses improvisation and other techniques taught originally by Constantin Stanislavski and Michel Saint-Denis. When asked if she had a specific technique for preparing to play a role in Blue Jasmine, she said, “I don’t have particular process. I think the material, the director, and the other actors reveals what you need to do. Woody was very much about it being alive. He wasn’t interested in anyone’s homework. Obviously, as you were alluding to, the material is so dense, especially with Sally (who plays her sister) and I in particular, who I think are the only two people who got the whole script. We talked a lot about the back-story and how that can inform the subtext. But it was a fascinating thing to play different aspects of Jasmine. With different people, she was an entirely different person.” She was also asked about how she played a character with a mental illness and if she did any research on it. “Yes, but I’m no so ‘method’ that I took Xanax every night. But, it’s amazing things you find on YouTube. So, yes, it was important for me to chart through when she’d taken a Xanax, how many she’d taken, if she mixed it with alcohol, and what the mental and physical effects would be. Also, what I was trying to see was that sense when she was beginning to have a panic attack and when she would break out in a sweat. So, her physical state and her psychological state were kind of interesting balls to try and juggle.” And then she was asked if she liked her character and she told the people, “I disagree. You don’t have to like your character. It’s not forming to like them or dislike them. I think that’s where lies sentimentality and particularly with a character like Jasmine, who a lot of what she does is unpalatable, it’s your job to find out why they are behaving they way they are. The story telling does that and it’s your job as an actor to make that subtext come to life. So I think one can be compassionate, but you don’t necessarily have to like your character.” This shows that she doesn’t believe in loving your character but actually playing and being your character.
However, I’m not sure this will help me with my acting because it’s so hard to get yourself to cry or get emotional with a whole bunch of eyes staring at you. It’s hard to feel your character, but it is possible. I will try to use Cate Blanchett’s advice, especially when she talked about how she played her character with a mental illness because my character also has a physical problem (diabetes). I will also use her advice about “shedding layers to expose what’s underneath.”
In conclusion, Cate Blanchett has showed me that an actor doesn’t have to know their character, they just have to be their character.
Cate Blanchett is a classically trained actress who uses her imagination and expression. She deeply follows her character. She uses improvisation and other techniques taught originally by Constantin Stanislavski and Michel Saint-Denis. When asked if she had a specific technique for preparing to play a role in Blue Jasmine, she said, “I don’t have particular process. I think the material, the director, and the other actors reveals what you need to do. Woody was very much about it being alive. He wasn’t interested in anyone’s homework. Obviously, as you were alluding to, the material is so dense, especially with Sally (who plays her sister) and I in particular, who I think are the only two people who got the whole script. We talked a lot about the back-story and how that can inform the subtext. But it was a fascinating thing to play different aspects of Jasmine. With different people, she was an entirely different person.” She was also asked about how she played a character with a mental illness and if she did any research on it. “Yes, but I’m no so ‘method’ that I took Xanax every night. But, it’s amazing things you find on YouTube. So, yes, it was important for me to chart through when she’d taken a Xanax, how many she’d taken, if she mixed it with alcohol, and what the mental and physical effects would be. Also, what I was trying to see was that sense when she was beginning to have a panic attack and when she would break out in a sweat. So, her physical state and her psychological state were kind of interesting balls to try and juggle.” And then she was asked if she liked her character and she told the people, “I disagree. You don’t have to like your character. It’s not forming to like them or dislike them. I think that’s where lies sentimentality and particularly with a character like Jasmine, who a lot of what she does is unpalatable, it’s your job to find out why they are behaving they way they are. The story telling does that and it’s your job as an actor to make that subtext come to life. So I think one can be compassionate, but you don’t necessarily have to like your character.” This shows that she doesn’t believe in loving your character but actually playing and being your character.
However, I’m not sure this will help me with my acting because it’s so hard to get yourself to cry or get emotional with a whole bunch of eyes staring at you. It’s hard to feel your character, but it is possible. I will try to use Cate Blanchett’s advice, especially when she talked about how she played her character with a mental illness because my character also has a physical problem (diabetes). I will also use her advice about “shedding layers to expose what’s underneath.”
In conclusion, Cate Blanchett has showed me that an actor doesn’t have to know their character, they just have to be their character.