Cate Blanchett: Praise is so problematic

Cate Blanchett finds praise harder to handle than criticism.

The Australian actress has been lauded by critics since coming to international attention with her role in 1998 movie Elizabeth. She may have won two Oscars, three SAG Awards and three Golden Globes but the 46-year-old still isn’t used to acclaim.

“In the end, the praise is far more difficult to handle than the criticism,” she confessed to Vulture. “The criticism I know what to do with.”

Cate likes it when people come up to her on the street to discuss her work, which includes star turns in Blue Jasmine, Notes on a Scandal and The Aviator, because it helps her truly gauge how her performances are being perceived.

Feedback is bound to be good for her next two offerings, Carol and Truth. The former sees Cate playing an older married woman who falls for a younger female shop assistant in the 1950s. In Truth, she portrays long-running 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes opposite Robert Redford.

Both movies have once again been highly praised by critics and Cate got a great deal of satisfaction out of them.

“I’d been with Carol for a really long time,” she said. “It was very difficult to get made, and I’d been with it through all its ups and downs, so it had been living inside me for a really long time. I was just relieved that it was finally happening.

“But then Truth happened like a bolt from the blue. I read it, I ate it alive, and it got up incredibly quickly.”

Cate puts her heart and soul into her characters and it can mean she finds it hard to let them go once filming is over.

“You know, I’ve got four kids — they’re not interested in the detritus from me walking off set,” she laughed. “That helps. But it’s a strange thing with filmmaking, because I’m always filled with regret on the last day of shooting when I think, I finally understand this character.”