O, The Oprah Magazine October 2003
Cate Blanchett's great escapes: the star of
Veronica Guerin--the new biopic about the
assassinated Irish journalist--loses herself in
classic novels and plays.
VERONICA GUERIN WAS AN IRISH JOURNALIST who, in
the early 1990s, wrote about drug dealers and
major drug importers in Dublin. She railed
against the ineffectual nature of the Irish
legal system--how the government couldn't get
these guys, who were blatantly guilty and
walking into pubs and shooting people. Guerin
had a sense of moral outrage, but also I think
she loved to be at the center of life, doing
something to make a difference.
The great tragedy was that none of the laws
changed during her lifetime. She had been
threatened and beaten up for her writings and
was killed in 1996. As a result of her death,
there was a lot of marching, Concerned Parents
Against Drugs became an important force, and
changes finally occurred.
What stuck me about Veronica Guerin was that she
believed in the power and necessity of writing.
I've tried to read popular books--the ones
people are all abuzz about--and I can't help but
think, Oh, it's like fashion, where you feel
this will be gone in a week. The other thing
with a lot of books out now is that they're
begging to be turned into films; they're being
written with a cinematic eye, and I find it hard
to spend time with something that's a bit
cynically conceived. The books and the play I've
picked feel to me as if they had to be written.
They are intimate books, full of issues and
characters that need to be heard.
CATE BLANCHETT'S Bookshelf
The Uses of Enchantment
BY BRUNO BETTELHEIM
I read this in drama school. It's an analysis
from a psychologist's perspective of the meaning
and power of fairy tales. One example that
sticks in my mind is the metaphor of a child
going into the forest. Bettelheim makes the
point that the structure of this story parallels
children's experiences in life--how you can be
frightened but eventually make it through to the
other side. One can feel
expendable--particularly in this day and age,
and especially working in film--and this
reinforces for me the power of storytelling and
the necessity of it.
True History of the Kelly Gang
BY PETER CAREY
Carey is one of my favorite writers. The first
book of his I ever read was a collection of
short stories called The Fat Man in History. He
also wrote Oscar and Lucinda--a beautiful
story--which was turned into a film that I made.
In Kelly Gang, the narrative voice is so unique.
We Australians all know that outlaw Ned Kelly
was hung after the famous shoot-out in 1880. But
what Carey does is get inside his character's
mind in such an illuminating and heartrending
way. And there's not a trace of sentimentality
in it. I so admire that as an actor because I
realize how difficult it is to do.
Tender Is the Night
BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
This novel was handed to me on a silver platter
by my husband, who said, "You cannot die without
reading this." I keep coming back to it because
it's so detailed in recording the inner life of
Dick Diver, the central character. His
yearning--to save his mentally unstable wife,
Nicole--just keeps unfolding. That aching is
quite destructive but also so understandable.
The word I think of with this story is fragile.
I was utterly struck by the fineness of
Fitzgerald's writing and the timelessness of
Dick and Nicole's failures.
VOSS
BY PATRICK WHITE
Nobel Prize winner Patrick White is one of
Australia's great novelists and playwrights.
This story is about Voss, a German explorer, and
Laura, a young Sydney woman, who meet very
awkwardly in a drawing room one hot afternoon.
Voss embarks on a trek across Australia and
writes her a series of letters, most of which
never reach her; at the same time she writes
letters he doesn't receive. It turns out that
the act of expressing their true selves in the
small, shut-down environment of colonial
Australia allows them to fall in love. As a
reader, you are in the most intimate
position--privy to each one's thoughts. Voss's
quest takes him through the center of Australia,
which no white man has ever conquered and from
which he won't return. But along this fruitless
journey, he becomes more self-aware and more
involved with this woman he will never meet
again. It's horrible and tragic and
unforgettable.
Oleanna
BY DAVID MAMET
This play represented such a turning point for
me as an actor. I'd just come out of drama
school and I was playing opposite Geoffrey Rush.
I had to leave my own baggage at the door and
take on this character who would be understood
by some and hated by others. Mamet has taken all
the extraneous stuff away and left you with just
this searing, polemic essential battle to the
death. Geoffrey and I keep saying Oleanna is an
inkblot test, because your reaction to it
reveals to you your own sense of politics. It's
so provocative--afterward, people were shouting
at one another passionately. To see that happen
in the theater lobby, which can be such a
bourgeois, polite space, I just knew this is
what I should be doing with my life.
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
BY SOGYAL RINPOCHE
I've been dipping in and out of this book since
my early 20s. I completely respond to one of its
basic notions--self-responsibility. It's about
preparing for a good death, and I've found that
in having a child, you're confronted by your
mortality each day as the child grows and
blossoms. But every single element in our
Western society is a denial of death. We don't
want to think about it, which compounds the
terror we feel about it. This book helps one to
navigate one's way through the terror.
Veronica Guerin opens in October. Cate Blanchett
is also appearing in The Lord of the Rings in
December.
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