Cate Blanchett (pictured) has denied she is bisexual after appearing to suggest she had enjoyed relationships with women “many times” while promoting her new film – a lesbian love story.
Speaking before the premiere of Carol at the Cannes Film Festival, the Australian claimed she’d been misquoted in an interview which made international headlines. The Oscar-winner, who is tipped for another Academy Award nod for her performance in the film, said: “From memory, the conversation ran: ‘Have you had relationships with women?' And I said: ‘Yes, many times. Do you mean have I had sexual relationships with women? Then the answer is ‘no’’. But that obviously didn’t make it.”
The married mother-of-four said that, in 2015, the answer to questions about her sexuality should be “who cares?”
“Call me old-fashioned, but I thought one’s job as an actor was not to present one’s boring, small, microscopic universe, but to make a psychological connection to another character’s experiences,” she said. “My life is of no interest to anyone else. Or maybe it is. But I certainly have no interest in putting my own thoughts and opinions out there.”
She added that it would be positive if the film made people talk about gay rights.
Carol is based on a Patricia Highsmith novel about a married woman in the 1950s who has an affair with a young shop assistant played by Rooney Mara. Noting that “we live in deeply conservative times”, Blanchett said: “There are 70 countries where homosexuality is still illegal so it still seems to be an issue.”
What was interesting about Carol was how the sexuality was a private matter, she said. “I think what often happens these days, if you are homosexual, you have to talk about it constantly. It has to be the only thing you put before your work and any other aspects of your personality.”
She said her love scene with Mara was no more difficult than one with a man, and was “quite hilarious actually in a way. It’s always great when it’s not titillating. It was a really important scene in the structure of the film and the telling of the story.”
The film was a 14-year passion project for writer Phyllis Nagy and is directed by Todd Haynes, whose previous work includes Far From Heaven.
The Independent