The trades continue to be a buzz with stories associating Cate with projects near and far Trying to discern the validity of the tales is the equivalent of searching for The Holy Grail. This week for instance, the following was reported in Variety:

Blanchett Gets 'Gift'
by Michael Fleming

After an Oscar nomination for "Elizabeth," Cate Blanchett is stacking up the lead roles. She's being courted for "Charlotte Gray" with director John Madden and "The Man Who Cried" with Robert De Niro.

Dish hears she's also negotiating to join director Sam Raimi in "The Gift," a thriller scripted by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson that will shoot early next year.

Blanchett would play a woman in small-town Arkansas who has ESP who gets involved in a murder mystery.

The film's set up at to be financed at Lakeshore, with Jim Jacks, Tom Rosenberg and Rob Tapert producing and Sean Daniel and Gary Lucchesi exec producing. It's akin to "A Simple Plan," which takes place in a rural setting and had taken years to make it to the screen. Raimi directed "Plan," which Jacks produced with Adam Schroeder.

Blanchett will next be seen in Miramax's "An Ideal Husband," which opens June 18, and later this year in "The Talented Mr. Ripley," which Anthony Minghella directed for Miramax.

Blanchett is currently onstage at London's Almeida Theatre starring in "Plenty," which also has generated talk of being imported to Broadway much like last year's Almeida hit "The Iceman Cometh" with Kevin Spacey. Blanchett's repped by William Morris.

Hmmmm...it's getting harder and harder to know how seriously to take all these stories, although Variety usually gets more right than wrong. Cate's denial of working with DeNiro could merely have been a negotiating ploy, to bring more money to the table...such is the dance of negotiation in Hollywood.

It would be wonderful if Cate were able to work with Sam Raimi. Sam would certainly be capable of exploring Cate's "dark side". And, after John Madden's success with Shakespeare, it would certainly be a treat to be involved with him.

The interesting kink, however, remains the DeNiro factor. There is definitely something of a myth surrounding DeNiro. Time and again, when actors are queried as to whom they might like to work with, DeNiro's name invariably heads the list. We can't speak for Cate, but, that certainly is something to consider when trying to figure out the possibilities.

And, with the prospect of a possible trip to Broadway accompanying "Plenty" on the horizon, Cate is definitely the proverbial kid in a candy store, with limitless opportunities. We shall anxiously await for this puzzle to sort itself out.

MTV MOVIE AWARDS AWRY

This week, the 1999 MTV Movie Awards came and went, and thanks to the Tonys, they may have only been the second worst of the past seven days. Cate did not win the Best Breakthrough Award. No, Katie Holmes won for her forgettable performance in Disturbing Behavior.

Now, this is the kinder, gentler Cate News, but, I'm afraid just a slight bit of editorializing is necessary here. It is apparent that the MTV Awards have much more to do with television than they do with motion pictures. If Katie had won for her superb performance in GO, that would have been one thing. But, to win for the odious Disturbing Behavior truly boggles the mind.

If there was any doubt that TV ruled the kingdom here, it was dispelled when Joseph Fiennes was defeated for Best Male Breakthrough by James VanDer Beek in Varsity Blues. Starting to get the drift here? And, since Cate and Gwyneth began their film careers at virtually the same time, how do you explain Cate being up for Best Breakthrough while Gwyn wins for Best Actress?

However, the capper was Best Action Sequence being awarded to Armageddon, beating out the D-Day invasion sequence from Saving Private Ryan. The real wonder is how Cate ever managed to get nominated in the first place. One would guess that the MTV editors made the nomination choices, then left it up to their viewers to botch the voting.

Thank goodness Jim Carrey was in usual fine form, accepting his award in hilarious fashion as a Foghat-lovin' biker dude. And, the Farrelly Brothers acceptance, censored heavily by MTV for commenting on the Colorado high school shooting, still managed to convey the irony of being considered the best when the country is being told that Hollywood is populated by scum. In a nod to Cameron's King of the World acceptance, Bobby F. gratefully acknowledged being "king of the scum". C'est la vie.

CATE'S STAMP OF APPROVAL II

As we first reported here a couple of weeks ago, a former Republic of the Soviet Union became the first sovereign nation to designate our Cate as being postal-worthy, honoring her with a Commemorative Stamp. Well, there have been, apparently, two different ones issued, and we thought you might be interested in checking out the second variety. Here they both are just in case you missed last time out:

CB: We also wash more (chuckles) than the Elizabethans did.

ABC: We hear of them putting lavender and so forth so sort of ward off the odours

CB: It was a very, very stinky place. I mean Philip Of Spain I think, washed once in his life and no wonder she didn't want to marry anyone.

ABC: You wonder what bred on their skin don't you? What they must have smelt like? In bed for instance?

CB: (laughs) I know you don't want to go there at all!

ABC: You really don't.

CB: Yeah I mean that's part of the reason she purportedly wore a lot of that lead make-up was that she apparently had a lot of cancers on her face and also something which the film makers didn't want to go into was that she was supposed to have had some sort of pox quite early in her reign which left her incredibly scarred.

ABC: Amazing. What about this director, Shekhar Kapur...am I pronouncing his name, "Shekhar"?

CB: Shekhar, as in "mover and shaker".

ABC: Are his methods as a director dramatically different from other directors you've worked with?

CB: Yes, I think he puts off decision making as long as possible. The way films are structured, they're incredibly hierarchical and there's an enormous time constraint, you feel money is on everyone's lips more often than artistic decisions, you know we're talking about a lot of money so I don't blame them but there was a lot of tension between his more 'Indian' way of working and the economics of film making. But that was great because it meant that you felt every take you're making different decisions and I suppose the downside of that is that it's terrifying when you go to a screening because you don't know what decisions you've made, whether they are actually cohesive - and whether they hold together.

ABC: I suppose this is an obvious question, but was it shot chronologically? Did you start at the beginning and end at the end?

CB: No-

ABC: Don't tell me you started at the end and went backwards?

CB: -No, I think one of the last things we did was that, no that was in the middle, that last image. No, the very first scene we did was when she was announced queen. That was the first day.

ABC: I think this is amazing for people working on these things to have to try and keep the thread in your mind for what the story is but particularly for a character that develops into such a different looking and behaving person as you were.

CB: Hmm, I know it's very different to stage in that way, you have to find I think, an anchor for that character you know, as Elizabeth or who that may be, you have to find that and hold onto that.

ABC: Can you describe in words what that anchor was in Elizabeth?

CB: I think it was for me a self assurance. That even, because Shekhar was wanting to explore the young, naïve girl but I kept saying that even at the age of nine she could speak better Latin than her tutors and she was incredibly bright, and I suppose it was that frustration that she knew her worth but no-one would pay her the respect she deserved. So I suppose that tension of what she had to be externally but knew herself to be internally was an anchor for me.

ABC: Ahh.I'm glad you do what you do and I do what I do! (both laugh) because that sounds completely impossible. Let's hear the next piece from your list of music which is Verdi from La Traviata. Tell me about this.

CB: Well when I was shooting Elizabeth I went with a friend to an ENO production of La Traviata and I was just so struck by this woman's performance, I can't remember her name because I was so full of tears and I was so embarrassed that I had to run out of the auditorium so quickly I didn't take the program. But when she signed the letter it was the most emotional piece of acting I've ever seen. The emotion she invested into that "Ooohhh" was you know, I was missing my husband I think, it was very moving.

MUSIC CUE: La Traviata by Verdi

ABC: The voices there of Joan Sutherland and Matteo Mangera with La Traviata by Verdi chosen by our guest today, Cate Blanchett. One thing I want to ask you is about the whole business of acting, I think it must be awful when someone like me comes along and asks you how you do your job because the way you do your job is up there on the screen or on the stage. However, I'm curious to know how you lose self-consciousness?

CB: Oh gosh, that's a life-long work, I mean that really is, that's the hardest thing of all. I think you have to find that bravery to get up in front of people and make a fool of yourself.

ABC: Are there any tricks, are there any shortcuts to it?

CB: It sounds very mundane, but you've got to put your focus on the other person. Because if you're truly listening to somebody and not listening to yourself and concentrating, I suppose, on trying to effect another person , I sound like an acting manual (laughs) but it's true, you have to listen very acutely I think.

ABC: Do you think acting can be taught?

CB: I do..no, I think a technique can be taught. What disturbs me about acting at the moment is that there seems to be a homogeneity in that people are looking for the next such-and-such rather than people embracing who they are as actors and you know, bringing their natural clown or whatever to the stage. But definitely for me I needed to go to an institution, (chuckle) an acting institution for three years just to find discipline and a focus because, so often I think, there's so little time to rehearse and you feel that you have to come up with a performance in five seconds and it's really important I suppose to keep learning and accumulating.

ABC: Does it become more of a natural process as you get more and more work under your belt?

CB: Yes and no.It sort of becomes harder in a lot of ways to get up and be fearless.

ABC:I've heard that, that when you're young and inexperienced you can do anything.

CB: You've got nothing to lose. My very, very, first job I was understudying at the STC for Top Girls, and I had had to come in for the last two weeks and I was sitting and, you know, so nervous with Kerry Walker and Deb Kennedy around a table and I thought 'how am I going to do this?' And I just had to plunge in, and you do.

ABC: The same thing I presume will apply now, even more than ever, in a sense because of the stardom, whether you like it or not with the success of a film like Elizabeth. With everybody talking about it. I'm just wondering that if this is something upon you, you'd rather not have?

CB: I suppose, look, if it generates more work then I'm happy to have that. It's always fantastic when a film or a piece of theatre takes off, I mean that's ultimately why you do it.

ABC: Have many offers come in since Elizabeth's been out?

CB: I'm doing a play next, I'm doing David Hare's Plenty in London and after that I don't know. I don't sort of...it's very hard to plan ahead. People keep telling me to plan more than six months ahead, but it's impossible, I don't know how I'm going to feel once I finish that.

Thats all for now, fellow Cate fans. Until next time, remember...when all else fails, PLAY A VOLTA!!!