Cate Blanchett
Respected actress with heart of green
Academy Award and Golden Globe winner Cate Blanchett has been called cold and intimidating because of her impressive talent and serious dedication to acting, but when it comes to the Earth, Blanchett proves she’s all heart.
Off-grid in Australia
In her native Australia, Blanchett is very conscious about how she lives and works. Not only is her home off-grid, powered entirely by solar panels, but she’s making her work environment a little greener as well.
Blanchett and husband Andrew Upton signed on for a three-year stay as artistic co-directors for the Sydney Theatre Company, where their plans include more than just putting on a good show. It has to be an eco-friendly show, too. Blanchett has spoken about adding solar panels and reusing rainwater as steps towards an entirely off-grid theater season. Such a move would make the theater company the first of its kind.
Cate Blanchett’s gifts of green
Blanchett has been in the media both for working with and donating to green organizations. She promoted Earth Hour in Sydney, Australia by taping radio and television advertisements. The initiative tackles the common misconception that one person can’t make a difference with climate change. Businesses and residents were urged to turn off all lights for one hour, known as the Earth Hour, kicking off a campaign to cut Sydney’s greenhouse emissions by 5 percent. Blanchett has also participated with her two young sons in the Walk Against Warming protest, alongside 40,000 others.
Donations are a notable aspect of Blanchett’s green repertoire. She thanked cast and crew members of The Missing by making a substantial monetary gift to Forest Guardians, a U.S. environmental watchdog group dedicated to preserving wildlife and natural habitat. In a press release she was quoted as saying she’d “forged an intimate connection to the land” during filming in New Mexico.
Growing up green
Cate Blanchett learned about conservation young. Growing up with a grandmother who lived through the Depression taught her to recycle and not let anything go to waste. She has said she didn’t think of it as “green” at the time because that sort of label wasn’t common. Her big realization came while reading a past editorial saying Perth, Australia would run out of water in 10 years. At the time it was met with silence, but these days the environmental concerns of Blanchett and other celebrity leaders, like Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, are being echoed throughout Hollywood.
