In honor of her emotional, chaotic, haggard and utterly brilliant acting turn in Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett was honored with the Best Actress Academy Award this evening. Even given her highly touted competition (Sandra Bullock, Judi Dench, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams), she wasn’t exactly a longshot to claim victory. In fact, most Oscar observers were pretty sure she’d take home the trophy, but that doesn’t mean the whole evening went as expected from her perspective.
Rightly or wrongly, Blanchett has the reputation of being a little stiff. She’s considered an artist’s artist who isn’t necessarily accessible to the average person and may not be a whole lot of fun. Well, she did her best to blow that reputation out of the water this evening with a rousing, fun and weird speech that included the hashtag "#SuckItJulia".
For a reminder of Blue Jasmine and how wonderful Blanchett is in it, you can check out the trailer below…
The key to Blanchett’s great performance is how much she jumps in and just goes with it. The role is messy. It’s disorganized and often ugly. It’s not the type of thing a woman could just walk through. It required an emotional selling out and working without a safety net and total trust in director Woody Allen. She gave that, and as such, she completely earned her victory here.
At just forty-four-years-old, Blanchett should have a ton of years ahead of her to be cranking out more nominated films. She’s already been honored on six separate occasions, and I’m not saying she can get to Meryl Streep levels, but there’s no reason to think she can’t wind up with double or so what she has now, which would put her as one of the most acclaimed actresses in the history of Hollywood.
Cinema Blend’s sincerest congratulations go out to Blanchett during this exciting time.
