Cate Blanchett defends straight actors playing LGBT characters
The 49-year-old actress says she doesn't believe that actors need to share an experience with a character in order to connect with them.
Cate Blanchett has defended straight actors playing LGBT characters and says she will “fight to the death” for the right to suspend disbelief.
The actress dropped by the Rome Film Festival on Friday (October 20) to participate in a discussion with the festival’s artistic director Antonio Monda. During the discussion, the pair began discussing 2005’s Carol, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, in which Blanchett played a lesbian character.
While discussing the film, Blanchett revealed she had never been asked more questions about her sexuality than when playing the character. Interviewers during the Carol junket often questioned the actress about whether having a lesbian experience was essential to understanding the role.
During the discussion, however, the 49-year-old claimed it defies the entire point of acting, saying: “It also speaks to something that I’m quite passionate about in storytelling generally, but in film specifically, which is that film can be quite a literal medium.
“And I will fight to the death for the right to suspend disbelief and play roles beyond my experience. I think reality television and all that that entails had an extraordinary impact, a profound impact on the way we view the creation of character.
“I think it provides a lot of opportunity, but the downside of it is that we now, particularly in America, I think, we expect and only expect other people to make a profound connection to a character when it’s close to their experience.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Blanchett later revealed she’s hopeful that more LGBT films are being greenlit today before recalling how it was difficult to get Carol made.
She said: “Carol was a real labour of love for me. I’d read the Patricia Highsmith story ages ago, when I was in high school. And the film, I think now would be made in a heartbeat, but eight years ago, it was a very difficult film to get up.
“Two women, both of whom are lesbian-ish persuasion in the 1950s, which is like ‘Who wants to go and see that? Only 12-year-old boys go to movies.’ Thank goodness we’re changing the demographic of the critics who write for Rotten Tomatoes.”
She added: “For me, if something is difficult to make, it’s like a red rag to a bull. It makes me want to make it more.”