Age: 57
female
Catherine Elise Blanchett (born May 14, 1969) is an Australian-British and American actor, voice actress and producer. Regarded as one of the best actresses of her generation, she is known for her versatile work across independent films, blockbusters, and the stage. Blanchett is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. After graduating from the National Institute of Dramatic Art, Blanchett began her acting career on the Australian stage, taking on roles in Electra in 1992 and Hamlet in 1994. She came to international attention as Elizabeth I in the drama film Elizabeth (1998), for which she won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and received her first of seven Academy Award nominations. Her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator (2004) won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She later won the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a neurotic former socialite in Woody Allen's comedy-drama Blue Jasmine (2013). Blanchett's other Oscar-nominated roles include Notes on a Scandal (2006), I'm Not There (2007), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), and Carol (2015). Her highest-grossing films include The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014) trilogies, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Cinderella (2015), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Ocean's 8 (2018). Blanchett has performed in over 20 theatre productions. From 2008 to 2013, she and her husband, Andrew Upton, were the artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. Some of her stage roles during that period were in revivals of A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya and The Maids, garnering several theatre awards and nominations. She made her Broadway debut in 2017 in The Present, for which she received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play nomination. Blanchett has also received Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and Outstanding Limited Series as producer for the FX/Hulu historical drama miniseries Mrs. America (2020).
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants—Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-the play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language. Though The Tempest is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of romance for this and others of Shakespeare's late plays. The Tempest has been put to varied interpretations—from those that see it as a fable of art and creation, with Prospero representing Shakespeare, and Prospero's renunciation of magic signaling Shakespeare's farewell to the stage, to interpretations that consider it an allegory of Europeans colonizing foreign lands.
