Cate Blanchett as: Annabelle “Annie” Wilson

Director: Sam Raimi
Selected Cast: Hilary Swank, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear
Written by: Billy Bob Thornton & Tom Epperson
Release Year: 2000
Genre: Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
MPAA Rating: R

 

IMDb | Photos | Videos | Official Site

When Jessica King goes missing, all eyes turn to Annabelle Wilson. Not as a murder suspect, but as a clairvoyant. Many of the towns folk go to Annabelle for help, and Jessica’s fiancée, Wayne Collins, turns to Annabelle for possible guidance. Annabelle feels that she can’t help, but this doesn’t stop her from constantly getting visions of Jessica’s fate.

Related Images

View more images at the gallery.

Behind the scenesRelated Videos

Quotes from Cate Blanchett

• “I found Annie very elusive and very layered. And there’s something about the way, because of the death of her husband, she has shut herself off from the people around her. She is very open and attuned to people she barely knows, but is blind about the people who are closest to her.” (New York Times, December 2000)

Quotes from Others

• Sam Raimi:
  — “It didn’t change that much. It was about an $8 million movie. It ended up being a $9 million movie. And originally, no one was cast… But Cate Blanchett became interested, and that was the one condition I had in making the film, that she do this part. And she did it. And then, what happened was, a lot of great actors really admire Cate… During every audition that that we would have, newcomer or old pro, they’d refer to Cate Blanchett as the next Meryl Streep. The actors believe that she’s outrageously good. So what happened was, all of these fine talents that might not normally work for scale, or work for such a small picture, or not both at least… they were drawn because of the quality of the screenplay and the fact that Cate Blanchett was starring.”
  — “The screenplay was great because it really painted very real pictures of these characters in a small Southern town, and I felt that the only way I could do it justice was in casting the best actress there was. In fact, once I got into it, I became convinced that the only way I could do the picture justice was if I could cast Cate Blanchett in the part.”
• Keanu Reeves:
  — On why he accepted to be part of the film: “Because of Cate Blanchett.”
  — On his character, Donnie Barksdale: “It was disturbing to play that role. I don’t practice physical violence, so that, to me, was very difficult.”
  — On his reluctance to punch Cate Blanchett on a physical scene: “When I approached Cate, I had to hit her. Though I was pretending, it was really hard to punch her in the stomach. This is one of Cate’s great things: she told me, ‘Come on, let’s do it’, and it was wonderful.”
• Rosemary Harris:
  — On how she got the part in Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy: “I have Cate Blanchett to thank. She wanted me to be in her movie, The Gift. I was doing Waiting in the Wings on Broadway in 1999, and only had Mondays free, so I flew down to Savannah, did the film, and came back that same night. The director was Sam Raimi, and when he signed on for Spider-Man, he offered me the part.”

Trivia & Facts

• Filmed in USA.
• Cate Blanchett and Giovanni Ribisi also worked together in Heaven (2000).
• Billy Bob Thornton wrote the script for this film and he starred in the movies Bandits (2001) and Pushing Tin (1999) with Cate Blanchett as well.
• Based on Billy Bob Thornton’s own mother’s psychic abilities.
• Annabelle ‘Annie’ Wilson’s car is “The Classic” – the Delta 88 Oldsmobile that appears in every Evil Dead movie and nearly every other Sam Raimi movie.
• To prepare for her role in this film, Cate Blanchett met psychics. One of them told her she would have two bodyguards and play a writer who was killed for what she was writing, three years later she found herself on set of Veronica Guerin (2003) where she was playing the journalist who was murdered. She had two bodyguards as the case of John Gilligan, man convicted for Guerin’s murder, was re-opened. Cate was also told she would have four children which came true as well.

Los Angeles premiere, 18 December 2000