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Cate Blanchett Tells Variety She's Had Relationships with Women: 'Many Times'
Art imitates life as Blanchett currently stars in the lesbian-themed Carol, set to premiere at Cannes.
Picture this... Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, and Carrie Brownstein as lesbians in the 1950s! This is not your favorite dream from last night. It’s the cast of Carol, the Todd Haynes helmed adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s benchmark lesbian novel The Price of Salt. But that dream gets even better now that Oscar winner Blanchett has revealed to Variety that she’s actually got some experience with women to draw on.
When the Variety interviewer asks if Carol is Blanchett’s first time playing lesbian she responds, “On film — or in real life?” Then, when asked if she’s had past relationships with women, Blanchett says, “Yes. Many times,” but fails to provide any further information.
In the film, set to premiere at Cannes this month, Blanchett plays the titular role of the socialite Carol (the original name of the book that Highsmith wrote under the pseudonym Claire Morgan), who meets and falls for a younger woman, a department store clerk and artist, played by Mara. Paulson and Brownstein costar as a couple of the other women in Carol’s life.
Regarding her character Carol’s sexuality Blanchett tells Variety that she doesn’t believe Carol would have known to label her experiences. “I never thought about it,” Blanchett says. “I don’t think Carol thought about it.”
Highsmith wrote The Price of Salt during the heyday of lesbian pulp novels, but her tale, which is at times heartbreaking, varied greatly from the even bleaker outlook of so many pulp novels, offering up a glimmer of hope with its “happy ending." Some of these novels were part of Blanchett’s research for the role. “I read a lot of girl-on-girl books from the period,” Blanchett tells Variety.
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Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
