Cate Blanchett says at Cannes that she’s ‘always trying to get out of acting’

By Dan Heching, CNN

(CNN) — She’s one of the most celebrated actors of her generation, but Cate Blanchett wants to branch out even more into other filmmaking pursuits.

“I’m always trying to get out of acting,” she said at the Cannes Film Festival this week during a conversation with Variety’s Chief Correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister. “I’ve been trying to stop acting my entire professional life.”

The two-time Oscar-winner was at the ritzy French cinema fest to present her new film, “The New Boy,” which premiered on Friday, a film she stars in and also produced. In the conversation with Wagmeister and her producing partner, Coco Francini, as part of Kering’s Women in Motion Talks, Blanchett talked about her work as a producer, which she said “feels (like) an extension, for me, of my work as an actor.”

The “Tár” star acknowledged that while sometimes her work in film “involves me being in front of the lens,” “sometimes it’s back behind [the lens]” where she gets to be “a little bit too bossy.”

Blanchett is an accomplished producer, with producing credits going back to 1999. She executive produced the 2015 Todd Haynes film “Carol,” in which she also starred, as well as last year’s “Tár.” Both of those films earned her best actress Academy Award nominations.

Blanchett also mentioned how on her 2020 FX miniseries “Mrs. America” – which is where she and Francini first met and began their producing partnership – they decided on the mandate that on all their projects going forward, “you must interview a woman and you must interview a person of color.”

“We’ve both had experiences where we walked on set and done the headcount and you wonder why you sort of slightly feel alienated and annoyed some days,” Blanchett said.

“I realize that I’m the only woman in the cast…there are 62 men, and yep, I’m the only woman. This ratio is bad,” she also said. “it’s really disproportionate. And it means that you’re always laughing at the same jokes. I do have a really good sense of humor, but it’s like, let’s change it up.”

“I look forward to the day where we don’t even need to have interviews about women in cinema.”

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