Cate Blanchett nabs second Venice best actor award for ‘Tar’ performance

Cate Blanchett stepped out with her daughter Edith on the Venice Film Festival’s red carpet after winning Best Actor, offering the world a rare glimpse at her only daughter.

Australian actor Cate Blanchett arrives on September 10, 2022 for the closing ceremony of the 79th Venice International Film Festival at Lido di Venezia in Venice, Italy. Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP

Considered one of the greatest actors of her generation, Cate Blanchett won the best actor award in Venice for a second time on Sunday.

Blanchett won in 2007 for her gender-bending performance as Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There”, and also headed the Venice Film Festival jury in 2020.

This time, the 53-year-old won for her complex and challenging role in “Tar”, as a renowned classical music conductor accused of inappropriate liaisons with female colleagues.

The film tackles several hot-button issues including the MeToo movement, political correctness, and women in positions of power.

But Blanchett told journalists in Venice that she wasn’t interested in “agitprop”, or political propaganda through art.

Cate Blanchett and her 7-year-old daughter Edith Vivian Patricia Upton attend the closing ceremony red carpet at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. Picture: Gigi Iorio

“I don’t see artistic practice as an education tool,” she said. After a film comes out, she said, “it can be politicised, discussed, people can be disgusted with it, offended by it, inspired by it, but that’s outside our control.”

Cate Blanchett was among the stars wearing a black gown to the closing ceremony of Venice International Film Festival on Saturday as actors marked their respect to Queen Elizabeth II following her death. Picture: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.

It’s rare for Blanchett to give the world a glimpse of her only daughter, who she shares with her playwright husband Andrew Upton. Edith, 7, is the couple’s fourth child, following their three biological sons: 20-year-old Dashiel, 17-year-old Roman and Ignatius, thirteen.

The Australian actor said in November 2015 that she had wanted to adopt since her first son was born in 2002.

“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,” she said at the Women in the World India Summit.

“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.”

Cate Blanchett poses with the Coppa Volpi for Best actor for "Tar" during the award winners photocall at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 10, 2022 in Venice, Italy. Picture: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.

Cate Blanchett won Venice’s best actor honours for her bracing turn as a classical conductor in Todd Field’s Tár. Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.

With her mop of bright blonde curls, Blanchett’s adopted daughter has often been said to share mum’s striking looks.

Blanchett was among the stars wearing a black gown to Venice Film Festival’s closing ceremony, as actors marked their respect to Queen Elizabeth II following her death.

She made her breakthrough performance in 1998, playing the Queen’s 16th century namesake in “Elizabeth”, which won her a slew of awards and her first Oscar nomination.

She was joined by Julianne Moore, 61, and Jessica Brown Findlay, 32, in wearing the mourning colour on the final day of the event.