Happiness is fleeting - I think that's the main lesson I have learned.
— Cate Blanchett
People tend to look great if they feel great.
The Oscar is very beautiful, utterly mesmeric, but I don't feel any more important because I have won one. It doesn't mean I'm any better than anyone.
I'm from Australia, where the film industry is potent but small.
I love 'Annie Hall,' but then I adore 'Hannah and Her Sisters.' Dianne Wiest is amazing in 'Bullets Over Broadway,' but her in 'Hannah and Her Sisters,' I absolutely loved it.
I remember thinking, when I was playing Hedda Gabler, that several sequences of the play were utterly absurd.
I think there is a long exploration in American drama of women in particular who, by force of circumstances or because they are predisposed to, choose fantasy over reality.
I look forward to the holiday season every year.
Suddenly, my friend's daughters are becoming my best friends. I have so many 12-year-old girlfriends.
No one is ever who they purport to be.
I'm of the opinion that it's okay to be silent, to not speak if you don't have anything to say.
Theater is a space where you cross over from everyday life, because there are real people in that moment moving in front of you - you're being invited to believe in a story and cross that bridge.
For 'Blue Jasmine,' I made a decision not to wear any make up in the last shot of the film, as I felt like she had such a mask on - I thought it would be a good idea to leave her with nothing and become completely transparent.
When my husband turned 40, I was obsessed. 'Has he had his medical checkup?' He needed to go to the doctor; he needed to go to the dentist. Any little cough, I was really on him. Then he turned 40, and I thought, 'Maybe that's why I've been so obsessed with his health!'
I don't think it's more difficult for actors to have a good marriage than anyone. I think, in the end, a really important component of any relationship is honesty, and it also comes down to luck.
When you're stretching yourself, as a role like 'Blue Jasmine' did for me, you risk falling flat on your face.
I grew up listening to music and going to the theatre.
I would have loved to have been an architect - which, actually, would have been a disaster.
There's very little reason in politics these days.
I saw the first 'How to Train Your Dragon' film with my children, and I found it utterly exhilarating.
What happens a lot in film, though not so much in the theatre, is that you get stroked and sort of massaged, like a little guinea pig.
I think sometimes when you're working consistently in film, and maybe this is just me, but you do feel quite dislocated from your audience.
There are certain people who prize celebrity over substance. That makes the media world go round. The media needs those people to exist.
I miss Brighton enormously, enormously. There is so much I miss, including rain. I miss the verdant countryside.
Passion is a quality I admire in a woman.
I think when I was pregnant with my first child - he's about 10 or 11 now - I first noticed changes in my skin, which can make you panic a bit. I had a bit of melasma.
There are very few issues that lie specifically in one region now. Polio in Syria doesn't affect Syria alone. I don't think any issue can ever be isolated into local politics these days, because we all know too much.
When you go to a concert, part of being there is that you're all hearing the same thing. It's about being in a crowd. If you go to a gig and there are two people there, then it's not the same thing.
I am happiest when I don't know what's coming next.
I think if you're going to wear a red lip, you don't want it wearing you, so it's about finding the right colour.
I think about my father and how sad it was that he never had grandchildren.
I'm incredibly fortunate to have met the intelligent, generous, risk-taking, stimulating man to whom I am married. He's really amazing.
I don't feel like, 'Now I'm a great actress.'
When I came out of drama school, I was in a shared house in Sydney.
What I think of as a mistake might be something that does really well at the box office, so I'm my own harshest critic - as we all are, really.
Men are boys for such a long time and really don't start getting the great roles until they're in their mid-thirties. But then they've got a long time to do them, whereas for women, it's all about playing younger and younger and younger.
I tend to have this perverse reaction to authority and stress: I become more confident and clear when a challenge is enormous.
We keep making the same mistakes as a species, and you can usually draw it back to the fact that we are all terrified of dying. We also all think that we are going to escape it until we get to 65!
You know, you do have a self-awareness as an actor.
You do not want to be in a creative organisation with everybody being like-minded and stroking each other's creative egos. You want differences of opinion... constructively.
When a gift is difficult to give away, it becomes even more rare and precious, somehow gathering a part of the giver to the gift itself.
I don't know, maybe my sons will be gay.
We need to keep switching up the language around climate change.
You're always more critical of your own country. People will talk about stuff in Britain, and I'll go: 'Aw, it's not that bad,' but at home, it's different. It's inside you.
You have to surrender less when you see a film than when you go and see something live.
I use the Philip Kingsley range of shampoos, and they've got a great elasticiser, which is fantastic. I wrap my hair in cling film and put that on.
I think I just want to garden - or kill some plants, in my case.
We've enshrined the purity, sanctity, value, and importance of bringing children into the world, yet we don't discuss death. There used to be an enshrined period where mourning was a necessary part of going through the process of grieving; death wasn't considered morbid or antisocial. But that's totally gone.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I have to write everything down.
I don't mind not looking conventionally - you know, attractive if that's what the part requires.
