Australian actress Cate Blanchett has revealed the A-list director who once told her that her acting was 's**t' during the filming of the 2006 movie Babel. Speaking at the Rendezvous in the Bunuel Theatre during the Cannes Film Festival, Blanchett recalled her first day on set with Brad Pitt and director Alejandro Iñárritu.
Blanchett said she was already traumatised because her son had an accident in Morocco. She described how after a couple of takes, Iñárritu approached her and Pitt and said, 'This is s**t. What is this s**t?' He added, 'There's nothing here. This scene has to work or the movie doesn't work,' before walking off.
The actress reflected on the incident, calling it a form of direction. 'That knocks you off your centre,' she said. 'Some say, 'That's incredibly disrespectful,' or 'That's upsetting to me.' But sometimes a director can lead with love, but incredibly tough love.' Blanchett also joked that her look in the final scene might have been fear that Iñárritu would criticise her again.
In the same interview, Blanchett discussed how aging has affected her acting abilities. 'As you get older, the palette that you're playing upon gets perhaps more calcified and less malleable, so there's a lot of stuff you cannot do,' she said. She noted that she can no longer tap dance as she used to.
Blanchett also expressed disappointment over the #MeToo movement being 'killed very quickly' in Hollywood. 'There are a lot of people with platforms who are able to speak up with relative safety and say 'this has happened to me',' she said. 'What the movement revealed is a systemic layer of abuse, not only in this industry but in all industries, and if you don't identify a problem, you can't solve the problem.'
