Interview

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Everybody knows that Cate Blanchett is a good actress. In fact, she's one of the best. She can play queens. She can play spies. She can play emotionally confused schoolteachers who have affairs with their students. She can play Spock-eared nymphs. She can play Bob Dylan. And she can do it all on stage, on film, on television, and probably on YouTube, if the circumstances demand it. She's gotten awards, yes, and recognition from all corners. In fact, just telling someone that Cate Blanchett is in a movie often inspires the response, "Oh, Cate Blanchett," which has become international shorthand for, "Oh, Cate Blanchett agreed to act in this film, so it must be of some quality. Even if I wind up not liking it or not even understanding it, there must be something to it, or else Cate Blanchett would not have done it." So, Cate Blanchett: good actress.

But there's something about what Blanchett does, how she thinks about things and goes about her business, that has less to do with being one of the best actresses, ever, of all time, and more to do with being an artist, which is the overarching theme of this ­issue. Of course, there are bits of Blanchett in all the women (and men) that she plays-there's the porcelain skin, for one thing, and the betraying eyes that very often speak before her characters do. But that's where the similarities usually end. And just as there is a difference between someone who paints and someone who makes paintings, or a pile of quarters on the floor and an installation, there is a difference between being a movie star who appears in films and being an actor who creates characters. Sometimes it's a difficult difference to decipher, and the most interesting art often challenges the boundaries of what art can be. But watching Blanchett do what she does, the difference somehow seems more evident.

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Blanchett's latest film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was directed by David Fincher. The movie was shot in New Orleans and is based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story. As the title would suggest, the plot involves a man named Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt) who is mysteriously growing younger with each passing day, and his doomed relationship with the love of his life, Daisy (Blanchett), as they continue to age in opposite directions. And in January, Blanchett and her husband, playwright Andrew Upton, commence three-year terms as co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company in their native Australia. Jack White recently caught up with the 39-year-old Blanchett at the theater, where she took a break from rehearsals for a production of The War of the Roses to talk about, among other things, the art of performing.

JACK WHITE: Hi, Cate.

CATE BLANCHETT: How are you, Dad?

JW: I'm good. How are you, Mom?

CB: Good. I haven't spoken to you since . . . I think Karen [Elson, White's wife] was still pregnant when we spoke last.

JW: Yeah. We've got a girl and a boy now. Scarlett White and Henry Lee White. They're holding each other's hands right now. Each moment doesn't last long enough, does it?

CB: I know. That's why we just have to have more of them. The world is so massively overpopulated, but if you're halfway decent-looking and you make nice ones, then I think it's probably your responsibility to make more.