Cate Blanchett spoke to The Observer ahead of BLACK BAG’s release. The film will have its premiere this Sunday, 9 March, in New York.

Cate will be on The Today Show, Live with Kelly & Mark and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on 10 March, an interview with James King on BBC Radio 2 on 11 March, and a taped appearance with Naomie Harris and Marisa Abela on The Drew Barrymore Show on 14 March.

Steven Soderbergh’s BLACK BAG is in cinemas this Friday, 14 March. Interview, clips, and reviews below.

Cate Blanchett saw in the New Year in the Arctic, with her husband and four children, by cutting a hole in the ice and jumping in. It was -30C and she wore a “funny hat” for the cold and, “It was fabulous,” because, she says, “Everything… paused.” It’s February now, and the restaurant near the river is just beginning to fill with evening diners when Blanchett slides between the tables in her tartan “chicken feeding coat” [is this her description?] and striped shirt, collar popped. “Who are they murdering out the back?” she shouts – the noise of dough being pounded in the kitchen sounds as if they’re beating somebody to death and means we need to lean in, over her pot of turmeric tea. “I always thought, if the acting thing didn’t work out, which it still might not, I would love to be a Foley artist,” creating sound effects for film, smashing watermelons, clicking cups. “Yes, I can burp to order.” Oh? “Not fart, though. One of my primary school friends, vomiting sounds was her trick. Are you any good at noises?” I attempt, quite sweetly, a generic beatbox. “That sounded slightly like a kangaroo. I’ve been away from Australia a long time, though, so…”

“The only thing keeping me remotely sane at the moment is getting into cold water every day,” Blanchett says. “I get up and get in. Five minutes and it just brings everything back down. Because you have to connect with where you are.” Do you not… feel like you’re dying? “Well, I don’t know what your experience of childbirth was?” We digress, tea is drunk. “You just have to breathe and be there. You can resist that pain or you can surrender to it. And I’ve done it long enough now that I can return to that place during the day. Otherwise, you know, my brain’s like a Pac-Man.” We spend a happy five minutes scrolling through photos on her phone to find the ice hole (huskies, her funny hat, her daughter wrapped in jackets, “A lot of pictures of people doing yoga stretches and making ceramics, sorry,”) until she apologises again, violently. “I mean, what middle-aged person isn’t talking about cold plunging? It is so boring!” In many circumstances I’d agree, but with Blanchett it remains interesting because of the impulse – the thing that leads her to the ice.

“I always think you have to start as you mean to continue. I think that’s true of relationships, friendships, any enterprise. It’s a new day. And I’m just trying to start my day as I mean to continue – connected and open-hearted. That’s what I’m trying to do.” Is it working? “It feels like a monumental challenge at the moment. My job is to connect. And there are a lot of nefarious actors at the moment striving for us to separate ourselves from each other.” She purses her lips. “It’s not my daily protest, but it was a magical holiday. What did you do for New Year’s?” I tell her I made a cake. “Excellent. See? Starting as you mean to continue.”

Blanchett came straight to the restaurant from a rehearsal room. She’s working on a stage production of The Seagull with a cast that includes Tom Burke, who also stars in her new film, Black Bag. The thing about Blanchett, says Burke, is, “She’s not a soloist. Even though she, of course, has the talent, charisma and skill set to be exactly that. She wants to be part of the band.” Black Bag is a spy thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh in which Blanchett and Michael Fassbender play married intelligence agents whose loyalty to each other is tested by a case – the black bag is the suitcase required for a covert job you can’t tell anyone about, even your husband.

In some ways, I suggest, their marriage, with its secrecy built in, is ideal, in that it has the space required to maintain desire. “Yes, it’s all about the things that are not said, which is really interesting to play. I think it’s a fascinating way to look at a marriage now, because it’s meant to be all about honesty, having everything out there. But what does that mean for desire and what does it actually mean for trust, if there are no secrets that you’re prepared to keep?” Blanchett has been married to Upton, a playwright, since 1997. They’ve worked together, too, running the Sydney Theatre Company at home in Australia – now they live on a 100-acre farm in Sussex that the Daily Mail calls “Blanchettville”. What did this film teach her about relationships? “Every marriage is different, but the ones that last are based on a profound trust and, I think, not having a stranglehold over your partner. Or an expectation, really, that you can ever truly know one another.”

As she dithers about perhaps ordering some cauliflower (“I love a cauliflower. I can’t grow it, though. We’ve got problems with moths that eat our broccoli but, oh well, they were there first”), I admit I was nervous about our meeting. In previous interviews she has shown resistance. There is a moment when Blanchett typically sighs, or declares her lack of interest in talking about herself, or her characters, or her “craft”. “Ah yes,” she says. “We could make this very short.” She rearranges her shirt collar, which emerges rakishly from a red jumper. “I’d much rather listen than talk. Some people come to life in these environments, being able to articulate the ‘why’ of what they do. But I find it a little bit like the question, ‘Why do you love your partner?’ It’s really difficult to say, particularly after a long time, because you’re so entwined and meshed, and it’s like an organism that keeps evolving. It’s hard to pin down.” Why does she love her partner? “On Tuesday it might be his beard and on Wednesday it might be the way he eats cherries. And it’s interesting, some relationships which you think are incredible and full of passion, you realise, oh, they’re actually competing with one another. Or they need the partner to be something in relief of themselves, rather than being their own entity.” She and Upton both do the cold plunges every morning, “before going off into our separate little worlds,” but no more swimming talk, boring, sorry.

In her role as a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Blanchett recently announced a new grant scheme for refugee filmmakers, offering up to €100,000 each to five people creating work about the experiences of displaced people. “When I began working with them, the number of people who were displaced around the world was approaching 60 million, now it’s over 120 million. And a vast majority of those are children, which, as a mother of four…” she shudders. “I do feel there’s an obvious intersection between what’s going on with our climate, our collective climate, and displacement. It’s not going away.” So these filmmakers’ perspectives, “are important to break down the preconceptions we have about individuals who are displaced, the false and dehumanising narratives that are out there.” Does she feel a responsibility, having a profile, to take action? It’s simpler than that, she tuts. “The more generationally, culturally and, from a gender point of view, diverse any room of any industry in any walk of life is, the more fascinating the conversation is going to be.” She shrugs.

What’s her relationship with the news? Is she compulsively scrolling? “I think sometimes by ‘switching off’ you can switch on? I’m trying to take a leaf out of my husband’s book – he’s not bound up in that 24-hour news cycle addiction where we keep swiping because we hope that these horrific situations will somehow change. So sometimes I think by disconnecting you can reconnect in a different way. You hear the dog-whistle side of things and see the longer arc of the narrative – I hope there is a longer arc.” She gulps her turmeric tea. “Knowledge has different rhythms. And wisdom and perspective isn’t always gained by being caught up in the drama. Being knowledgeable of the events and their repercussions and the consequences is important, but The white noise can be very distracting.”

Her head to the side, she asks what it’s like digesting news in order to write a weekly column, and I admit I forget everything the second it goes to press. “Oh, that’s interesting because I have the opposite thing. Once I’ve put something to bed, I have this profound realisation – I see the train receding and I think, now I know I was sitting in the wrong seat. That’s why theatre’s more natural to me, in that you can get up every night and re-offend and hopefully repair what you did the night before or go deeper. And until someone stops you at the bus stop you don’t know if anybody’s even seen a film.” There used to be box-office receipts, she remembers, “but now it’s ‘eyeballs’.” I was shocked to read about how streamers were commissioning “second screen” content – films that won’t distract viewers from their phones. “Yeah, it’s a little bit soul-destroying as an actor when you’re just a narrative delivery device.” How is she feeling about art and AI? “It’s very difficult to know at the moment where to put one’s energy. We’re in a transitional phase of something I hope is not going to be cataclysmic and horrific. I would have hoped that they, at this point in human history, would have developed enough wisdom to know these things have to serve the common good, not just line an individual’s pockets. But you have to be… there’s no option but to be… hopeful?” What does hope look like, for her?

“My hope has to have an engaged, active quality to it. I don’t think it’s a time to be passive, but it is a time to really deeply listen to what is behind what’s being said, what is behind people’s fear, behind people’s aspirations.” She flutters her fingers around her face. “I think there is an urge for people to gather. That may be around a screen watching a film or protesting, but people want to be in groups, and you hope that those groups are communities and not tribes.” What does she see as the main difference between the two? “Tribalism has an aggression that is so destructive and I think communities are about finding points of connection with people.” She looks at me sharply, catching herself. “I don’t want to sound too pompous or sentimental, but – breaking bread together or playing sport together or going to a movie together, we don’t have to have the same political views, or sexual orientation or the same culture, but there’s an urge to find pleasure in life and to not rid other people of their ability to seek that.”

“I think a lot of human issues have been politicised.” Carefully, she continues. “And the problem is that everything is so fragile at the moment, so we really have to be very judicious and targeted about where and when and to whom things get said, because so much is at stake. And somehow often a throwaway comment gets picked up and suddenly it becomes a mission statement. And what does that add to the action?” She flutters, apologetically. “ Maybe I am wary, but not because of personal repercussions. I’m a big girl. It’s more that I think there’s so much at stake.” Plus, she reminds me, chuckling, “We’re here to talk about a spy movie! I’m trying to keep it in context!”

As she’s talking, I’m reminded of a dress she wore last year at Cannes – it appeared to be a simple black gown, but when she lifted the white hem to reveal a green silk lining against the red carpet she suddenly became the Palestinian flag. At the time she neither confirmed or denied the intention. “I don’t know that talking about any dress that one wore could have done or will do anything to affect what is going on in Gaza,” she laughs, darkly. “But I think the lack of listening to people’s point of view and how quickly toxic that conversation became was heartbreaking.” She waits, serene now, for another question.

Do Blanchett’s characters stay with her? “There’s a weird thing that happens particularly when you’re…” She has extracted from her bag a small medical pot of gel and is rubbing it into her cuticles. “I had to wear these fake nails and… sorry, this is really inappropriate. I’ve got my bunion separator in my bag as well. I won’t open that up. Do you want some?” We briefly, happily, massage our hands. “It’s not necessarily that the characters stay with you, but it’s a little bit like being in a new relationship, in that through the prism of the dialogue and the fabulous sex you’re having with that partner, the world seems suddenly different. It depends on if it’s all-consuming, like [Lydia] Tár or Blanche DuBois, then it does affect your dream life, too. But the best antidote to that, I think, is having four children.” Are they interested in her work? “Well,” she says evenly, “I love talking to my kids. The three boys have got this language they speak between one another that’s kind of beautiful and impenetrable. But they’re constantly dismissing me.” Oh dear. “Yeah, fast-track humility going on – I’m constantly lampooned and discredited.” In what way? “I’m an irrelevance around the kitchen table, in a great way. Everyone’s an equal player, but sometimes my husband and I are less equal than the rest of them. They’re quite a force.” She packs away her gel.

She’s mentioned the idea of giving up acting more than once. “Yes I had a fantasy about getting on the train to Paris and not showing up in rehearsal today. That was my 3am dance. But I think I had to have that dance.” What was that? Nerves? “Nerves and fear of letting people down and not being able to give what, in the architecture of the thing, you need to reach. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t and irrespective, you have to show up.” Is that fantasy also about the life not lived? “Yes, possibly Dr Freud. And I’ve had a delightful avoidance of that by, I suppose, temporarily stepping into other people’s lives. But one day I’m going to grow up and get a proper job.” Foley! The chef is no longer pounding. “Foley!” Her press director is hovering, waiting to accompany her to a screening. I applaud her energy, as well as everything else, including the ice baths. “I get four hours’ sleep each night,” she grimaces. “So I’ll die soon. You heard it here first!”

Fashion editor Jo Jones; hair by Nicola Clarke at Nicola Clarke Colour Salon and using Sam McKnight Products; makeup by Mary Greenwell at Premier Hair & Makeup using Armani Beauty; fashion assistant Sam Deaman; photography assistants Ethan Humphries and Klaudija Avotina

Full interview on The Guardian

Reviews

If a James Bond or Mission: Impossible film excised all its action scenes––save a stray explosion or gunshot––while employing a script with a pop John le Carré sensibility, it might resemble something like Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag. A hyper-slick, suave spy thriller, it’s mainly relegated to dinner tables and office rooms as stages for rapid-fire, gleefully barbed verbal sparring scripted by David Koepp, returning to the genre after Ethan Hunt’s first outing. Primarily focusing on a trio of couples working in British intelligence, Koepp’s script poses the question: it is possible to have a healthy relationship when there’s no such thing as separating work from life, particularly when your job description is one of a professional liar?

Although the budget allows a dash of globe-trotting requisite for its genre, most of the week-long story takes place in London. We’re introduced to George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender), a top agent with OCD-level attention to cleanliness and detail not far removed from the actor’s recent Fincher outing. He’s tasked with finding the rat in his top-secret intelligence agency, the suspects now narrowed down to five colleagues: Freddie Smalls (Tom Burke), a weathered agent past his prime; Freddie’s younger girlfriend Clarissa (Marisa Abela); the agency’s resident therapist, Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris); and her significant other, the newly promoted Colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page). The fifth is his wife, Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett), a woman he adores so much he’d kill for her.

Setting up this tangled web of suspicion and paranoia, Soderbergh and Koepp have a field day with a riveting, extended introductory dinner scene where each couple gathers at George and Kathryn’s home, full of barbed, cutting accusations in which nothing professional or personal is off the table. It’s quickly apparent Black Bag is more concerned with the mechanics of relationships than the standard, world-saving lore of the spy genre. There’s a playful, heightened quality to the dialogue––claims of infidelity, jealousy, and betrayal are doled out––yet such assertions are delivered and received with an air of nonchalance. It’s all in the name of a game where one wrong word can have deathly consequences. Capturing this with a gauzy sheen, light sources appearing from the most unexpected of places––an effect strangely cozy as it is disorienting––Peter Andrews is once again in fine form.

As in most spy thrillers worth their salt, Soderbergh is less concerned about detailing the MacGuffin (in this case, Severus, a malware that has the ability to destabilize a nuclear facility with mass casualties) and more preoccupied with George’s commitment to Kathryn while secretly attempting to track her every move. In a workplace where a committed relationship can be a professional weakness and easy target for the enemy to exploit, Black Bag evolves into a story about the lengths one will go to protect the one they love. Rather than anything so schmaltzy as that may sound, there’s an exacting, sharp precision to the caustic turns where clues of potential betrayal are uncovered, in which a misplaced movie stub means one’s entire life could shatter.

Full review on The Film Stage

The great thing about the way Soderbergh makes movies—generally swiftly, and for relatively few pennies—is that he seems to have a great deal of fun doing it. The result is that his pictures don’t feel fussy or over-serious. That’s Black Bag in a satin-gold nutshell. The script is by David Koepp (writer of the best Mission: Impossible, the 1996 Brian De Palma iteration), and it’s filled with shimmery red herrings and liberal lashings of phony-baloney techno-spy stuff. (One agent compliments the work of another with buttery superlatives: “It’s a very sexy piece of code.”) The picture is sultry and understated, almost like a Sade song in movie form, though in some ways that’s a liability. Black Bag is over before you feel you’ve really gotten a hold of it; maybe it’s more of an amuse-bouche rather than a whole meal.

Full review on TIME

[Michael] Fassbender and [Cate] Blanchett make for a riveting married couple, their duplicitous line of work adding intrigue and spark to their relationship. George and Kathryn’s foreplay involves flirty interrogations — “Would you kill for me?” “Would you ever lie to me?” — and Black Bag has enormous fun with the fact that, as much as they love one another, they cannot entirely trust each other. Blanchett radiates chilly reserve, her dark eyes instantly sizing up anyone she encounters, while Fassbender exudes the same poised detachment he wielded in David Fincher’s The Killer. The actors are dangerously seductive as George starts to believe that his wife could be masterminding a plot within the agency.

Full review on ScreenDaily

Efficiency isn’t meant to feel this thrillingly erotic. But that’s how love goes in Black Bag, an ode to a poisonously compatible marriage between spies, in which lies are the daggers slipped under a lover’s pillow each night. Airtight efficiency is also precisely how Steven Soderbergh’s thriller operates. It starts the moment its plot kicks into gear and never looks back.

And while the supporting cast are impeccable across the board, it’s really Blanchett and Fassbender’s film to command, with performances that drip with old-school star power. You get the sense that if Kathryn suddenly started barking orders, everyone in the audience would be powerless but to obey, a kind of presence that hasn’t been seen much since Katherine Hepburn (whom Blanchett once played to a tee in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator). Fassbender, when he delicately adjusts his glasses or cuffs, evokes the sly, chilled elegance of a Michael Caine or Dirk Bogarde, but with a sliver of vulnerability in the eyes that really begs the question of what exactly is going on in that head of his.

Full review on The Independent

Steven Soderbergh‘s third collaboration with David Koepp in two years (Kimi and Presence), and the second to be released already in 2025, proves to be the charm for both with Black Bag, an exceptionally sophisticated and adult spy thriller that is also really the story of a marriage made more complicated by the fact both husband and wife work in the same spy agency. With an A+ cast at the top of their game, a tight 93 minute running time, and dialogue with wit and bite, this finds the director with one of his best opportunities to do what he does so well and give that older audience a reason to go back to the movies.

[Michael] Fassbender, rarely showing his cards as a spy who hasn’t yet come in from the cold, is perfectly cast as the inquisitive George, a man on a mission but so deeply in love with his wife that his job is nearing a mission: impossible moment he dreads discovering. [Cate] Blanchett is vivacious and smart as Kathryn, a devoted wife and top spy who is in for more than she bargained for. [Rege-Jean] Page, losing his Bridgerton persona completely, is an enigma with an ego, [Tom] Burke is outstanding as a man in decline, and the always great Harris is very fine as well. [Marisa] Abela, so impressive last year as Amy Winehouse in the underrated Back To Black gets to shine here as the reluctant Clarissa.

Full review on Deadline

Continuing to prove that retirement is not just overrated, but a real impediment to an artist’s best work, in “Black Bag,” Steven Soderbergh dashes off a sleek little genre exercise — a doodle really, at a stage in his career when he’s clearly just having fun — that proves to be one of his smartest and sexiest films yet. Heading up an impeccable cast are Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, who play George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean, a Nick and Nora-like couple of spies so deeply, foolishly in love that they find it inconceivable that the mole in the British intelligence agency for which they both work could well be their spouse.

Most successful marriages are built on trust. Once that much is established, then there’s room — if not a full-blown psychological need — for both parties to maintain a sort of secret garden where they can keep a few things private. The brilliance of “Black Bag,” which marks the director’s third project with David Koepp (after “Kimi” and “Presence”), isn’t just the way it puts the stakes between this particular couple on a much level, where tens of thousands of lives hinge on what they choose to hide from one another, but how an effective spy movie can simultaneously say so much about human relationships.

The movie toys with the idea that Kathryn could be compromised. So too could George, a master interrogator who swears complete honesty with his wife, even as he investigates Kathryn’s upcoming trip to Zurich behind her back. The two insist they’d kill for one another if necessary, and though there’s surprisingly little on-screen violence in the film, Soderbergh has no intention of wrapping “Black Bag” without testing those claims. Meanwhile, the cast are so comfortable in their roles that it comes together like a Swiss watch. Both entering a new phase of their careers, Fassbender and Blanchett bring a welcome maturity to their roles, which serves a couple who’ve been together long enough that the only lie detector they need is to look into one another’s eyes.

Full review on Variety