People Weekly October 2001

Scene Stealer: Cate Blanchett nabs the spotlight in Bandits--and takes time off in real life to become a mom.

If you think Cate Blanchett can act, you should hear her yodel. When Geoffrey Rush first worked onstage in Oleanna with Blanchett in their native Australia in 1993, he was stunned by her "raw, powerful and sensual" performance. But that was nothing compared with the show she put on after the curtain one night, when the cast adjourned to a raucous techno nightclub in Sydney. "The music was going at full belt, thumping, when all of a sudden 'The Lonely Goatherd' from The Sound of Music came on," Rush recalls. "And there was Cate, singing it as loud as she could."

These days, Blanchett, 32, is more likely to be rehearsing lullabies: She's expecting her first baby in December. Onscreen, though, the actress--who scored an Oscar nomination for 1998's Elizabeth--is still full of surprises. In the new movie Bandits, Blanchett, playing a housewife who joins up with bank robbers, tests her comedy chops for the first time and holds her own with costars Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton. With four more movies coming up this winter--Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the World War II romance Charlotte Gray and the dramas Heaven and The Shipping News--it's no wonder her versatility has earned her comparisons to Meryl Streep. Says Bandits director Barry Levinson: "She's the most chameleon-like actress I've seen."

At home in London, where she and her husband, screenwriter Andrew Upton, bought a two-floor apartment in 1999, Blanchett is gearing up for her new role as Mom. She and fellow Aussie Upton, 35, "are having fun together and coming up with silly names," says pal Jessica Paster. (Warning to kid: They named their terrier Egg.) "They are the most funny, loving and goofy couple I've ever met," says Paster, the fashion stylist who helped Blanchett pick the hummingbird-adorned Galliano gown that was a sensation at 1999's Oscars.

The pair, who also have a home in Sydney, are more likely to pop up at the theater or in kitchenware shops than on the party circuit. "They're not like Hollywood folk," says Thornton, "and that's really refreshing." When Blanchett goes on location, Upton goes with her--reflecting a pact the two made after Elizabeth, when the long separation and demanding role sometimes left then-newlywed Cate in tears. On the London set of Charlotte Gray, the couple spent breaks cuddling. "They can't stop looking into each other's eyes," says costar Rupert Penry-Jones.

Blanchett's vulnerability and drive date back to her childhood in the suburbs of Melbourne. Her father, Bob, a Texas-born advertising executive, died of a heart attack when Cate was 10. Her mother, June, a property developer, was left to rear her and her two siblings, Bob, a computer analyst, and Genevieve, a set designer. "I do feel that loss," Blanchett told The Sydney Morning Herald of Bob's death. "I have always believed there isn't enough time."

Blanchett dumped her fine arts and economics studies at the University of Melbourne after two years to attend Sydney's prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art. "She was very confident from day one," says classmate John Batchelor, who recalls her as "very much a hippie girl, constantly smiling and laughing."

She met Upton, then a script supervisor, in 1996 on the set of an Australian film. They wed in 1997, a year before Elizabeth shot Blanchett into the curious universe of Hollywood stardom. After her Oscar nomination, she returned to her London hotel room to find a bunch of roses with a note: "Congratulations on your nomination, Calvin." "I didn't know any Calvins," she later told Australia's WHO WEEKLY. Then she figured it out. "I went, 'My God! That's Calvin Klein!'" But Blanchett is hard to faze. "I think it's really important not to buy into your own hype," she added. "You have to laugh at it. Otherwise you'd go mad."

--Samantha Miller --Eileen Finan and Pete Norman in London, Rachel Biermann and Julie Jordan in Los Angeles and Sandra Lee and Dennis Passa in Sydney




COPYRIGHT 2001 Time, Inc.