| Cate Blanchett!! |
'It sound ridiculaous,' jokes Cate Blanchett, 'but one of the reason's I wanted to play galdriel was for the ears: I've always wanted pointed ears!'
Blanchett, the actress who won a Golden Globe and Bafta Awards and recieved an Oscar nomination for her portayal of Queen Elizabeth I of England, is cast in The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy as Galadriel, the beautiful queen of the elves, who gives gifts an council to the Fellowship of the ring when they come to her city in the Golden Wood of Lothlorien.
Galadriel-whose name, in translation, means 'Lady of Light'-is a character of power and wisdom.'She is very mercurial,' says Blanchett. There is sadness about her that comes from her knowledge that the age of the Elves in Middle-earth is coming to an end, but there is also an edge of danger to her character because she,too,is a ring-bearer and has the potential-were she to take the One Ring-to become a force as terrible as the Dark Lord Sauron himself;
Whithin a year of graduating from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett was receiving critical praise for her theatrical performances in plays by David Mamet and Caryl Churchill. Blanchett made her feature film debut as a member of a stronge female cast headed by Glenn Close in paradise road, a flim about a group of women imprisoned in Sumatra by the Japanese during World War II.
Her second film, Thank you god he met Lizzie won her the Australian Film' Critic's Circle award and the Afi Awards for best supporting actress and was followed by Oscar and Lucinda, co-starring with Ralph Fiennes, and her acclaimedperformance tiltle role of Elizabath.
Subsequent films have included a film version of Oscar Wilde's an Ideal Husband, the talented Mr. Ripley, Pushing Tin and A Man Who Cried. Most recently, she starred in Te Gift, directed by Sam Raimi.
The invitation to play Galadriel was one that Blanchett was eager to accept:!I love the book, I wanted to work with Peter Jackson and I was intersested in being part of a story that had a fantastical element to it, but which was being told in a way that was absolutely 'real''.
Since filming her scences for The Lord Of The Rings, Blanchett has played the heroine of Charlotte Grey, as well as completeing Bandits alongside Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Tornton, Heaven Co-starring Giorani Ribisi, and The shipping News with Kevin Spacey.
Reflecting on the film adaption of J RR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Blanchett observes: 'This book has had a powerful influence on people for almost fifty years and to have had the oppertunity to work on these films has been a privaledge: as if we were handing on the torch of out admiration for this book to generations to come' |
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