Actress says she’s become the coolest mum for her 3 boys ever since she made the film

May 11, 2010 09:45 GMT  ·  By

One of the first films to be screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood,” a darker take on the classic story, starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett as the leads. It also arrives in theaters in many territories this Friday, so hype for it is building up fast. Speaking with Times Online about it, Blanchett says one of the things she took from production was the coolness factor in the eyes of her three boys.

An accomplished actress who has literally won every award there is for her many films, Cate says that, before making “Robin Hood,” she was still to find that one project that would make her stand out in the eyes of her 3 boys. That day came when she took them to a screening of Scott’s film – which is, as the trailers released so far clearly prove, action-packed, thus ideal for the male segment of the audience.

“Our boys [Dashiell, 8, Roman, 6, and Ignatius, 2] had a ball. I went up in their estimation from the first night on set, when I was called on to shoot a flaming arrow, missed my mark and hit a light, which duly exploded. I mean, how many mums do stuff like that?” Blanchett says of her boys’ reaction to doing an action movie like “Robin Hood.” In the same interview, she also explains how no career achievement can possibly compare to the joys of motherhood.

What the Blanchett moviegoers will see onscreen at the end of the week, though, is a far cry from this one opening up to the interviewer. Scott set out to retell the story of the outlaw Robin and his love interest, Marion, and this is precisely what he did, critics are saying in early reviews, as cited by the Times. Whereas in past adaptations, Marion was pure goodness, Blanchett makes of her a calculated woman almost devoid of feelings, at least in the first half of the film.

“Rather than Robin simply coming to her rescue, Ridley was interested in depicting a woman who was completely unsentimental, who hardly knew her husband because he’d been away at war for ten years and who’d had to find her own means of survival. Then into her life walks this fellow and they form a bond,” critics say of Blanchett’s part, which is a millions miles away from what audiences may understand by a “damsel in distress.”