‘Extraordinary’: Cate Blanchett wins best actress BAFTA

Australia’s Cate Blanchett has won the best actress BAFTA for her portrayal of a troubled classical music conductor in Tar.

Actress Cate Blanchett poses with the award for best leading actress for her role in Tar during the BAFTA British Academy Film Awards ceremony. Picture: AFP

Actress Cate Blanchett won best actress for her masterful performance as a composer-conductor in Tar at the British Academy Awards in London.

A frazzled albeit elegant Blanchett trumped nominees Ana De Armas, Viola Davis, Danielle Deadwhyler, Emma Thompson, and Michelle Yeoh for the gong, using her acceptance speech to highlight the “extraordinary” women’s stories that have dominated films this year.

“It‘s been such an extraordinary year for women,” she said. ”Every year there are idiosyncratic, remarkable performances just breaking the myth that women’s experience is monolithic.”

Blanchett, who last week announced that she will take a break from acting, called her role in Tar “very dangerous and career-ending, potentially” and thanked the film’s producers for “holding their nerve” in making the film.”

Cate Blanchett wore a Maison Margiela Couture black gown designed by John Galliano which she first wore to the 2015 Oscars at the 2023 BAFTA awards.

In between slipping in a juicy quip about the countdown clock on her speech (“59, 58 — I’m getting closer to my age”) Blanchett thanked her family for “letting me go because this did take a lot. It took me away from you enormous a lot,”

“Enormous a lot? I don’t know, whatever that means. That was the state I was in,” she said, before shifting her praise towards director Todd Field, whom she said changed her life.

“You said check your ego at the door and let‘s attempt to make something magnificent, and for that I thank you, it’s changed my life.”

Blanchett will compete for best actress at the SAG Awards on February 26, and is favoured to win best actress at the Academy Awards on March 13.

While Baz Luhrmann’s glitzy Elvis biopic failed to notch the gong best film, it won four awards. With Austin Butler beating out Colin Farrell Brendan Fraser, Daryl McCormack, Paul Mescal, and Billy Nighy in the best actor category. In his best Elvis twang, he thanked the Presley family for their “love and for sharing with me who Elvis truly was.”

Austin Butler poses with the Leading Actor Award for his performance in Elvis during the 2023 EE BAFTA Film Awards. Picture: Getty

Of course, he accepted the award in his Elvis voice.

The film also won best make-up and hair, casting, and costumes.

All Quiet on the Western Front was the shock winner of the evening. The German-language anti-war film, set in the trenches of World War I, that arrived quietly on Netflix late last year beat out high-profile favourites The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Elvis and Tar for best picture.

The film, based on Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same title, won six other awards, achieving a BAFTA record of seven wins for a film not in English. The victories included best director for Edward Berger, best adapted screenplay and best film not in the English language.

In his acceptance speech for best adapted screenplay, Berger acknowledged Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said that the film and novel showed that “war is anything but an adventure,” adding “there are no heroes in any war.”