'Hopefully we'll inspire people to read about the history'
By Anna Krahn
Cate Blanchett is back gracing our screens in the role that won her worldwide recognition almost 10 years ago. The original 1998 Elizabeth won Blanchett a BAFTA award and an Oscar nomination — and now, as one of Hollywood's most revered actresses, she's back playing the role of the more mature and even more complex role of Elizabeth in The Golden Age.
Dramatic historical films are rarely reprised in this way, so the pressure of living up to the hype of the first film must have difficult — but Blanchett takes it all in her stride. “It’s more a theatrical model to reassemble a group working on film and I've reprised roles in the theatre which is something more accepted that one can automatically and further into a role,” she says. “When you do that in film somehow you have to battle, in some attempt, to uncross people’s arms and you have to justify why you’re doing it.”
So did she have doubts about whether to go back to the role? “To me there wasn’t any hesitation” she says.
In the first film the monarch was only in her 20s, but in The Golden Age she is in her 50s so Blanchett had to age somewhat more than the 10 years she had aged in reality. “I needed to age gracefully and be a more mature presence on screen to, without uttering a word, have a greater sense of history and maturity about me and to offer something different to the role and to the story.”
Even director Shakur Kapur said that as he watched Blanchett act as Elizabeth he would see an older woman appear and then disappear as soon as she returned to being herself. Not only did she have to deal with the pressure of Kapur's first film, she also had to live up to the dozens of interpretations of Elizabeth — but Blanchett denies finding this daunting.
“It’s very comforting to know you're sitting a long legacy of actresses who played the role and I'm all for absorbing all those influences, so you know the pedigree of the part as much as you know the figure in history.”
The historical accuracy of the film has been questioned — in particular the part where Elizabeth rides in front of the troops wearing full body armour and giving that speech. “Oh, it’s utterly debatable of course,” says Blanchett. “We talked about trying to create an image which would somehow to an audience create a sense of awe and shock and wonder that the troops must have felt that their monarch, and a female monarch, went to there front line of battle and was prepared to lay down her life.”
Historical films are always going to be questioned on their accuracy, and the debate about what is history and what is myth is one that captivates both Kapur and Blanchett — who is quick to point out that The Golden Age is a work of 'faction' and should in no sense be taken as fact. “That’s a terrifying thing,” she says “We're growing up with this illiterate bunch of children who are somehow being taught that film is fact when in fact it's invention. Hopefully a historical film will go and inspire people to go and read about the history, but in the end it is a work of fiction and selection.”