Cate Blanchett talks about her adopted daughter: ‘It’s not about biology’
A NOTORIOUSLY private Cate Blanchett says she and her husband first discussed adoption over a decade ago and that the gender of the child wasn’t important.
CATE Blanchett has opened up on her adopted daughter, Edith, saying it was something she had been planning for 14 years.
The Oscar-winning actor announced on March 6 that she and her husband of 17 years, Andrew Upton, had adopted a girl they named Edith Vivian Patricia Upton.
Speaking to Women in the World’s Tina Brown, Blanchett, 46, said she and Upton had spoken about adoption more than a decade ago.
“We actually began the conversation a very long time ago, after our first son was born and he’s about to turn 14, and then we just had two other children and it sort of dropped off the radar,” Blanchett said. “But I felt we had space, enough emotional room in our hearts and we’re privileged enough to have the capacity to have another child, so it wasn’t about biology.”
Blanchett said the main driver was not a desire to have a daughter after having three sons Dashiell, 13, Roman, 10, and Ignatius, six.
“There wasn’t a desire to have a girl necessarily — gender of the children has never been particularly important to me, it’s more about their spirits — but it’s been a remarkable thing watching them welcome her and become a little troupe,” she said.
Blanchett and Upton adopted Edith in March and said the family was besotted with its newest member.
“There’s a lot of children out there who don’t have the good fortune that our biological children do, so it’s wonderful,” she said at the time. “It’s wonderful to welcome a little girl into our fold.”
Originally published as Cate Blanchett talks about her adopted daughter: ‘It’s not about biology’