Cate Blanchett is basking in the admiration of queer “TÁR” fans.
Oscar winner Blanchett, who recently was awarded a Golden Globe for her turn as fictional queer conductor Lydia Tár, reacted to her status as a lesbian icon.
“Yeah, baby! That’s so nice,” Blanchett said during an interview with Attitude Magazine alongside co-star Nina Hoss. “Don’t know what it means but it’s nice. Yeah, cool, I’ll take it.” (Video is below.)
Blanchett has also starred in famous LGBTQ+ films like Todd Haynes’ “Carol” and Richard Eyre’s “Notes on a Scandal.”
The iconic actress addressed how “TÁR” writer-director Todd Field avoided stereotypes when it came to penning the character of Lydia who is accused of sexual misconduct with young musicians while being married to a famed violinist (Hoss).
“The characters are so nuanced. We had a lot of time to discuss their backstory in great detail and to make that manifest in what they did,” said Blanchett. “What I love about the story that Todd wrote and the way he directed it and the way we approached it is their same-sex relationship just was. It’s not the subject matter of the film, nor are the characters’ genders.”
Blanchett continued of the film’s reception, “It’s a meditation on power, but of course the landscape has changed enormously since we made ‘Carol.’ When we made ‘Carol,’ there were so few films that were moving over into the mainstream that dealt with same-sex relationships, and also picking it apart so it’s not a monolithic experience. I think ‘TÁR’ could only have been made now. It couldn’t have been made and viewed in a mainstream audience 20 years ago.”
Real-life conductor Marin Alsop argued “TÁR” was “anti-woman” in its portrayal of a queer conductor at the center of a #MeToo scandal. However, Blanchett later told BBC Radio 4 (via The Independent) that the film is “a meditation on power and power is genderless.”
Blanchett previously told IndieWire that the character of Lydia was born out of a conversation with writer-director Field in September 2020 about the state of the world. “The character came out of those rich conversations,” Blanchett said. “When I read it, I was so daunted by the ask of it — not just what was necessary to play the character, but also the depth of questioning in the screenplay and my relationship to it, which kept shifting depending on which scene we were shooting or which relationship we were focused on that day.”
The “TÁR” cinematic universe is set to expand with upcoming short film “The Fundraiser,” which will debut at 2023 Berlinale.
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