Hi, everyone!

Here are the interviews, photos, and videos with Cate Blanchett as part of Borderlands movie promo. She plays the bounty hunter, Lilith, in the film which is in cinemas now.

Sustainable Queen

It may come as no surprise, then, that the actor is championing sustainable fashion once again while promoting her new film, Borderlands. Blanchett – whose long-time stylist, Elizabeth Stewart, shares her eco-minded approach – began the press tour with a ’90s Maison Margiela jacket sourced from LA boutique The Kit Vintage, featuring lace-up sleeves, which she paired with repurposed leather trousers by Canadian label Mr Saturday.

Next up was a custom top by Hodakova, comprising 102 spoons that were sourced by designer Ellen Hodakova Larsson in the Swedish countryside, teamed with the brand’s reconstructed trousers. It’s proof that sustainability doesn’t need to be boring – with the LVMH Prize finalist often incorporating found objects and pre-existing garments in her designs.

Completing the trio of conscious looks was a Wolk Morais jumpsuit, made from Japanese rubber-coated denim from the early 2000s, which was sourced locally by the LA-based brand. Co-founders Brian Wolk and Claude Morais are known for using repurposed fabrics in their designs, which have also found fans in Julia Roberts and Viola Davis.

 

Cate Blanchett talks new movie ‘Borderlands’

Cate Blanchett had no intention of spending lockdown with a PlayStation 5.

“It was COVID, and I was doing everything to keep my kids away from playing video games, like, ‘Let’s get outdoors!’ ” recalls the actress, who shares four children with her playwright husband Andrew Upton.

But then, director Eli Roth reached out about a new movie called “Borderlands”, a kooky space adventure based on the popular video game series. He wanted her to play Lilith, a hard-boiled bounty hunter tasked with retrieving an arms dealer’s missing daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) with the help of a misfit team of treasure seekers (played by Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Florian Munteanu).

Blanchett, 55, found the game “quite addictive,” and was drawn to its predominantly female characters and fan base. “I thought, ‘This could be really interesting,’ ” she says. “In the game, there was always a nod and a wink; a deliberate B-grade mash-up of chunky sci-fi and spaghetti Western.”

Plus, it gave her an opportunity to work with Jamie Lee Curtis and Gina Gershon, playing Lilith’s longtime pals. “Jamie’s just exceptional. And when Gina walked on set, it was like va-va-voom, as it always is with her,” Blanchett recalls with a grin. “I mean, it’s not ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ It’s not ‘Blade Runner.’ It’s its own strange, weird thing, and when you look at the casting, there’s a motley quality to it.

“We’re a very motley crew, in life and in art. (Laughs.) I don’t think anyone would call ‘Borderlands’ art, but it’s fun.”

“Borderlands” shot in Budapest in spring 2021, just before Blanchett traveled to Berlin to film “Ta?r” that summer. In the Oscar-nominated film, she portrayed the fearsome (fictional) composer Lydia Ta?r. Between takes of “Borderlands,” she’d practice conducting while dressed in Lilith’s flame-haired, pistol-packing getup.

Flipping between characters “was a joy,” Blanchett recalls. “During the weekend, I’d immerse myself in Mahler, go through the music, and have piano lessons. And then I’d go back to my day job, which was running, punching, kicking, jumping – it was quite schizophrenic! But it was liberating. They were energetically and intentionally so different.”

For a small awards movie, “Ta?r” has had a unique pop-culture footprint since its release in 2022. Despite being a nearly three-hour drama about cancel culture and the creative process, the film continues to spawn countless online jokes and merchandise two years later. Many of the movie’s fans talk about the disgraced Lydia as if she’s a real person.

“The memes!” Blanchett says with a smile. “It’s so interesting. Who would’ve thought? I mean, I knew it was really special the minute I finished it.”

Throughout her three-decade career, the Aussie icon has constantly eschewed expectations. She has eight Oscar nominations and two wins, for her roles in “The Aviator” and “Blue Jasmine.” But she’s always taken big swings, too, playing Bob Dylan (“I’m Not There”), an elven queen (“The Lord of the Rings”), a Marvel villain (“Thor: Ragnarok”) and a wordless monkey (“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”). It’s why “Borderlands” shouldn’t come as a shock.

“I like those crazy, random, out-of-the-box asks,” Blanchett says, sitting by an office window in a slouchy black suit paired with “Brat” green Diadora sneakers. “They’re always the ones I find the most exciting and terrifying. It wasn’t like I said to myself, ‘Hey, let’s go find a character from a video game.’ ”

The actress likes to keep audiences guessing, with an eclectic upcoming slate that includes Alfonso Cuaro?n’s Apple TV miniseries “Disclaimer” (premiering Oct. 11). She’ll next star in films from Guy Maddin (“Rumours”) and Steven Soderbergh (“Black Bag”), and there’s “a great lot of chicks” she’d still like to work with: Carrie Coon, Lily Gladstone and Sandra Hu?ller, among them.

Blanchett is flattered by fans’ continued love for the 2015 lesbian romance “Carol,” which has become an unlikely Christmas staple among many cinephiles. (“ ’Carol’ and ‘Elf,’ ” Blanchett jokes.)

And she’s delighted that young people are discovering 1999’s Euro thriller “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” after the success of last year’s “Saltburn.”

“ ’Ripley’ just wouldn’t be made now, even if the great Anthony Minghella were here,” she suggests. To get that sort of financing for an R-rated drama is almost unheard of these days: “He’d have to fight so hard to actually shoot in those locations.”

She’s always surprised when fans ask about 2007’s “Notes on a Scandal,” a juicy, scholastic potboiler co-starring Judi Dench as an obsessed colleague.

“I don’t think I realized how many people have seen it,” Blanchett says. “What’s really rewarding is when someone comes up to you, and they didn’t see your film in the cinema the first time around. But they have a screen at home that’s not in sports mode, and they bothered to watch something you made 10 or 15 years ago. It means that had a longer shelf life.

“People say, ‘Oh, that was a flop’ or ‘that was a hit.’ But sometimes the films we hold up as the greatest of all time were not financial or audience successes, yet they’ve become classics,” she says, pausing and laughing as she brings it back to the movie she’s promoting.

“I’m not saying ‘Borderlands’ is a classic! It’s fun, fun, fun, but it’s not ‘Citizen Kane!’”

Reviews

Some parts of the reviews for Borderlands

What keeps Borderlands mildly involving is Blanchett’s game portrayal of the Han Solo-like Lilith, who professes not to care about anyone before, predictably, having a change of heart over the course of the film. The Oscar-winning actress is saddled with the same achingly ‘hip’ dialogue as the rest of her costars and, in keeping with the picture’s male gaze, Lilith exclusively rocks skin-tight outfits. Nonetheless, Blanchett manages to craft a few winningly cocky moments as this ace gunslinger and world-weary cynic, leaning into her character’s sexy, strutting essence.

In Blanchett’s occasional villain roles, like in Hanna or Thor: Ragnarok, she has demonstrated a flair for flashy, modulated showboating, but Lilith is something different for her: an unalloyed hero that gives the audience a likeable rooting interest. It’s fleetingly amusing to watch Blanchett flex her wit and grace amidst this motley crew of outsiders and reprobates. But Lilith so easily outclasses everything around her that Borderlands is that rare would-be blockbuster where you wish the main character could get her own standalone feature, just so she can escape this meagre adventure.

Full on ScreenDaily

Thank god for Cate Blanchett, who shot this before her acclaimed 2022 drama Tàr. Like just about everything she touches, she somehow makes the lead character of bounty hunter Lilith not only watchable, but even credible. In the frenetic world of Borderlands, that is a tall order. After narrating the setup for the film, when we actually meet her, she is at a bar on Prometha, and quickly demonstrates her kickass abilities, something noticed by the slick CEO Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), who hires her to bring back his missing daughter, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) from Pandora, which, as it turns out, coincidentally happens to be an old hometown for Lilith, who still holds psychological scars from it.

Full on Deadline

Cate Blanchett promoting @Borderlands in NYC. August 2024. #cateblanchett pic.twitter.com/8lQr0ZCo53

— Portroids (@portroids) August 5, 2024

Cate Blanchett stuns on the yellow carpet at the #Borderlands premiere pic.twitter.com/Xz8oyqyXEK

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 7, 2024

The cast of #Borderlands come together on the carpet at the premiere pic.twitter.com/OiXUWpaYiS

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 7, 2024

Cate Blanchett, Édgar Ramírez, Florian Munteanu and Jamie Lee Curtis at the @BorderlandsFilm premiere. pic.twitter.com/6isUnOxWk7

— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 7, 2024

Jamie Lee Curtis and Cate Blanchett talk to the press at the Los Angeles Fan Event for ‘Borderlands’ at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. #BorderlandsMovie pic.twitter.com/aLxyI02FPY

— OurMovieGuide (@OurMovieGuide) August 7, 2024