Cate Blanchett is tired, homesick & half-joking about retiring after ‘TAR’

I’ll say it again: I loved TAR. Cate Blanchett was brilliant in it and TAR is my favorite film of the year. Cate’s immersive, brilliant-monster-on-the-brink performance reminded me of Daniel Day Lewis in Phantom Thread, another film I adored. I loved the world-building and the intricate backstories and lived-in feel of those films. Well, Phantom Thread was DDL’s last film – he retired right after that. Is it possible that Cate will do the same now that she’s filmed what is arguably the magnum opus of her career?

Cate Blanchett’s latest role has her primed for yet another Oscars win – but the star has suggested it may be her last foray on the big screen. The Australian actress, who is based in LA, told The Sunday Project she doesn’t “want to work again” following her award-winning role in the upcoming psychological drama Tár, adding she was “profoundly homesick”.

The two-time Academy Award winner, 53, said she was still trying to “process” the emotional load from the gruelling film, in which she plays the fictional world-famous pianist Lydia Tár.

“I think it was because it was such a physical role, the echoes of it are still with me and I think I’m like a lot of audience members, I need time to process it,” Blanchett told Ten. “Obviously I’m lucky enough to work with some amazing directors who have changed my life, but when it all comes together like that, it does stay with you. So I don’t ever want to work again …” she added, laughing.

On a serious note, Blanchett, who has been working in showbiz for three decades, admitted she had been “profoundly homesick over the last four years”, after basing herself in Los Angeles from 2015 alongside husband Andrew Upton and their four children.

“‘I’m very obsessed, as most Australians, obsessed by water. I want to be by the water, in the water,” she said. “I would love to learn to be patient, to be still and think. My grandmother was a wonderful gardener and my mother is likewise an excellent gardener and she lives with us, and I really want to spend time in the garden with my mum.”

At the end of the interview, The Project co-host Hamish McDonald joked, “Congrats on the film, and your retirement.”

Blanchett added, “I’m sure there are millions of people around the world applauding right now.”

[From News.com.au]

While I do think she has a home in LA, she also has a country house in England. I know because a lot of her TAR interviews were conducted in or around that house, where she putters around in the garden and her greenhouse and has to set alarms for herself constantly. I don’t doubt she’s burned out, though, but it feels like they’re trying to make it sound like she’s burned out because of LA, when really – TAR was a lot, and the promotion is a lot. She’s going to need some time off. Then she’ll come back. She won’t pull a DDL!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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10 Responses to “Cate Blanchett is tired, homesick & half-joking about retiring after ‘TAR’”

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  1. blue says:
    January 25, 2023 at 11:52 am

    Cate is a gift. I hope she doesn’t leave. Love the purple dress.

  2. Mabs A'Mabbin says:
    January 25, 2023 at 12:09 pm

    We need Cate.

  3. FC says:
    January 25, 2023 at 12:12 pm

    This is the point in the Oscar campaigns where the actors hard-sell their emotional struggle and claim this is the “most challenging film they ever made”. I’m kind of getting those vibes from Cate here.

  4. Curmudgeon says:
    January 25, 2023 at 12:23 pm

    *Minor spoilers*
    TAR was ok. I liked the first half, it was a slow build up (lots of self-aggrandizing monologues, creepy vibes where she hears screaming, random noises in the background) but it established her character. But I thought they really rushed the second half – I didn’t really believe that she was that rattled by the emails (they didn’t spend a lot of time making the victim real to me at least so it was just Tar reacting), then all of a sudden she’s meeting with lawyers, then she’s in her childhood home for like 1 second, then living abroad. It just didn’t come together in the end for me which is a shame cuz I like this style of movie (it reminded me of Notes on a Scandal which I loved).

    • Lisa says:
      January 28, 2023 at 9:08 am

      There is a theory that just after she walks down the stairs into the dark to return the little toy to the cellist that this is a break with reality and the rest of the film of a fantasy of her own self destruction.

      It’s sort of a ghost story too as there are a few scenes (screen shotted on twitter for your pleasure) where Krista is just hanging out by the piano or scaring her kid in the middle of the night

  5. Emme says:
    January 25, 2023 at 1:39 pm

    Daniel Day Lewis didn’t “pull” anything. He legitimately retired. With grace, with dignity, with three OSCARS for Best Actor. Don’t diss DDL!

  6. Mee says:
    January 25, 2023 at 1:48 pm

    I was gonna say she lives in the UK. She has plenty of money, she can take years off and come back whenever she wants. she can do theatre. She’s in the top 1-3 white actresses in that age group, so whenever she wants, the top scripts will come to her first. For men, every script goes to Leo first, I’m sure it’s very similar for her.

  7. KC says:
    January 25, 2023 at 3:42 pm

    I can never look at her the same after her film with Woody Allen.