Cate Blanchett Talks About Career, Family and Playing Bob Dylan

Cate Blanchet is known in the Hollywood world as "the shape-shifter". And it's not because she once played in some sort of science-fiction production, but because of her amazing ability to impersonate anything and everything under the sun. And in one of the recent films she has done - Todd Haynes' hotly anticipated Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There - she actually took on the part of a man, joining a cast of six (among which Richard Gere) in depicting Bob Dylan in various stages of his existence and musical career.

Cate Blanchett's other autumn debut, brings her back into the shoes (and dresses) of Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The film is directed by Shekhar Kapur and comes as a sequel to Blanchett's 1998 breakout, Elizabeth - and has Clive Owen playing the part of Sir Walter Raleigh, which sounds extremely interesting. But Blanchett confesses to having some doubts about reprising this period role.

"When Shekhar mentioned it to me before, I always said no. Why would I want to do that? What else is there to say?" she says. But then she admits to having reconsidered it - mainly because the idea of a single, powerful yet childless and deeply troubled Elisabeth was intriguing and attractive. "I started thinking about what supposed 'middle age' means and the really modern concern that women have about infertility and the loss of one's attractiveness", she adds.

It was a daring move from Blanchett's side, and taking up Elisabeth again also made her think of the possible risks of being associated with the Victorian age character just a little too much. But, as director Shekhar admits, Kate Blanchett is a much more mature woman, and the strongest influence on her life in the past years have been her two sons. "I think that [her maturity] comes a little with age and with having done all these films in between but also because of motherhood. When you become a mother, there is a love that comes that you cannot completely intellectually explain. She's embraced that not everything in life is completely tied up and completely solved", he said.

Actually, her sons Dashiell, five, and Roman, three, were the major reason for which the actress and her husband - who were living in Brighton, U.K. - have decided to move back to Australia, where they recently bought a house near Sydney. But it's not like she intends to settle down and breathe more - on the contrary. Her husband and herself have decided to take over as co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. "It's hugely demanding and an enormous stretch", Blanchett says.

Though it might seem a professional departure to those unfamiliar with her background, stepping onto the stage is actually a return to her roots. After growing up in Melbourne-the daughter of an Australian mother and an American ad executive father who died when Blanchett was just 10-she attended drama school at Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art and worked quite steadily on the stage for a time, becoming, in 1993, the first person to win Sydney Theatre Critics award for best newcomer and best actress in the same year. "There were five years there of very solid repertory theater and ensemble work," says Rush, who, before working with Blanchett on Elizabeth, starred opposite the actress in a 1993 Sydney Theatre Company production of Oleanna. "Once that gets hardwired into you as a young actor, it becomes a talisman that you want to touch base with."

And two, it seems, is not the number of children she wants. "We're not going to wait forever" she smiles. "God, I'd love it to be now. I'd love it to be next week". There's not much we can say after this - except to reveal the ultra-secret-no-longer-secret that she is also part of the fourth Indiana Jones movie which is currently in production in Hawaii. Looking forward to learning more about that - and in the meantime, can't wait to see The Golden Age. I'm sure it will be fabulous.