Gore blimey: Cate Blanchett tells of chainsaw accident that took ‘nick’ out of her head
Aussie actress Cate Blanchett has revealed she recently had a run-in with a power tool that gave her a head injury but that hasn’t stopped her from shouldering much of her children’s schooling needs.
Confidential
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Cate Blanchett has nonchalantly laughed off a “chainsaw accident” with former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, despite admitting it took a “nick” out of her head.
The two-time Academy Award-winning actor was a guest on Gillard’s A Podcast Of One’s Own, where she revealed early on that she had a run-in with a chainsaw that sounds like the stuff of nightmares.
But ever the Aussie, Blanchett laughed it off.
“I’m fine … I had a bit of a chainsaw accident yesterday, which sounds very, very exciting, but it wasn’t,” she told Gillard jovially.
“Apart from the little nick to the head.”
“Be very careful with that chainsaw,” Gillard said in response to Blanchett’s gory news.
“You’ve got a very famous head, I don’t think people would like to see any nicks taken out of it.”
“I’m going to keep it on my shoulders,” Blanchett replied with a laugh.
Aside from her foray into real-life horror movies, the 51-year-old said the rest of her COVID-19 lifestyle was very much like any other parent.
Notoriously private, it was last reported that Blanchett and her husband, Andrew Upton, and four children, Dashiell, 18, Roman, 16, Ignatius, 12 and Edith, 5, were in lockdown dealing with the challenges of homeschooling.
She said she had already taken the year off to be a full-time mother and help her eldest through his A-Levels (the British version of the HSC), but due to COVID-19, she had stepped into a new role as a kindergarten teacher.
“I’d taken the year off being a working mother of four – my eldest son was doing his A-Levels, so I took the year off ostensibly to be with him and support him through exam period,” she told Gillard.
“And then all of this exam stuff evaporated and I’m left with an 18-year-old who doesn’t really want to have anything to do with me.
“So it’s a little bit discombobulating but, it’s a high-class problem, we’re all well.
“So I found myself being a kindergarten teacher to my five-year-old which is just as challenging.
“I have a huge respect for the teaching profession, I always have.”
Gillard and Blanchett continued to discuss feminism ahead of Blanchett’s upcoming role as 1970s Phyllis Schlafly in Mrs America, also starring Rose Byrne.
The show centres around conservative lawyer and anti-feminist Schlafly, who fought against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.
Season one of Mrs America is available to view on Foxtel GO.
Originally published as Gore blimey: Cate Blanchett tells of chainsaw accident that took ‘nick’ out of her head