Cate and Brad in a still from Benjamin Button

More grist for the mill, but here goes. Cate Blanchett sat down for an interview with Britain’s Telegraph to talk motherhood, marriage, Brad Pitt and Benjamin Button. In the interview, she slyly references Brad and Angelina’s relationship, which she witnessed first hand while filming Benjamin Button in 2007. She jokingly calls Brad’s love for Angelina “disgusting” and, with tongue firmly in cheek, she alludes to never wanting to work with Brad again because it’s annoying how much in love he is with Angelina.

Of all the challenges presented by The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – the near three-hour running time, the unusual story structure, the copious amount of make-up – Cate Blanchett found that her biggest problem came courtesy of her leading man, Brad Pitt.

“Honestly,” she smiles, “to see how in love with Angelina he is, it was really quite disgusting. Awful in fact. It’s in my contract now: I won’t ever work with him again.” She is joking of course.

They were excellent in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2006 drama Babel and here they shine once again, playing lovers in director David Fincher’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards.

“We talked a lot about moisturiser,” laughs Blanchett, “because there were so many prosthetics involved for both of us. I really shouldn’t complain, though, because Brad really went through the wringer with make-up and special effects. You work until 10 o’clock at night and then you are maybe up at 4am the next morning because it takes six hours to get the make-up on.”

The film is a love story, of course, although with the director of Seven, Fight Club and Zodiac at the helm, it does not feel overly mawkish.

“When one deals with an epic romance, a film like this could have easily gone into the sentimental, but given that we have got David Fincher, who is the world’s greatest cynic at the helm, we were safe.”

“Also I grew up with my grandmother, so having three generations in one household also makes you more aware of things like [mortality]. I guess that was one of the major challenges. That, and avoiding sentimentality.” She smiles.

“Plus, of course, Brad being annoyingly in love and the fact that we were so tired. We shot in New Orleans and the kids were always waking up in the middle of the night. So we weren’t getting much sleep.”

…In spite of her claims, it seems unlikely that Blanchett will retire any time soon; she has four potential projects on the horizon. Is there anything that might tip her over the edge? “Oh, that’s easy,” she chuckles, “having to work with Brad again!”

From The Telegraph

I’m sure there will be some people who will claim that Blanchett was not, in fact, joking. But from watching Brad and Cate together in a few interviews (like that charming Oprah interview a few months ago), I really do think they have a silly, fun, brother-sister type relationship where they can joke around with each other, even about the personal stuff. And I really enjoyed the part of the interview where Cate discusses how she and Brad talk about skin care – that really rings true, considering I’ve always thought of Brad as pretty high maintenance when it comes to his beauty treatments.

Here are stills of Cate and Brad in Benjamin Button, thanks to

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