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Everyone making Elizabeth a decade ago knew they were only scratching the surface of the Virgin Queen's story. Her reign was a long and eventful one, so director Shekhar Kapur and his principal cast have returned to the subject intent on developing further our understanding of a woman who defined her age.
Cate Blanchett, whose international acting career was made by her acclaimed performance in the original film, was integral to the project but characteristically she wanted some assurances before signing on.
"It wasn't hesitation," she insists, "it was just when we began to talk about it my questions were about the story and the context. The character is infinitely fascinating, her reign was so dense and so long that you say: 'what's the entry point now?'. The book-ends of the first film were so absolute that the beginning was a bit of a Chinese puzzle.
"We began to talk about the invasion of the Spanish Armada, and at that point in history she would have been in her 50s. When we left the last one I was in my 20s, so I needed to age - gracefully - in order to be a more mature presence on screen. Without even uttering a word I needed to have a greater sense of history and maturity about me in order to offer something different to the role and the story."
Although she hardly qualifies as a crusty old screen veteran there is one vital difference between her presence in both Elizabeth movies. Back in 1998 she was largely unknown to international audiences, though her reputation in the business was strong, based on solid theatrical credentials and a handful of Australian films including Oscar & Lucinda.
Now she is a star, the kind who inspires an almost regal awe in the gushing reviews and well deserved praise for her work in films like Veronica Guerin, Coffee & Cigarettes, Babel and Notes On A Scandal. She appears to be an actress with no obvious limitations, a point underlined by her head turning performance in I’m Not There, where she is one of half a dozen actors portraying Bob Dylan.
But it is Queen Elizabeth I who bookends her CV nicely, a natural watershed in a career that can only develop in more interesting ways still. Not that she is an actress to think in overtly careerist terms, her passion is for the work and the minutiae of character detail. So even as she was playing this unique woman she was looking for qualities that could connect her to the audience, and to Blanchett herself.
"On a small, prosaic, domestic level here was a woman confronting the ageing process but also confronting her past," she notes. "It seemed to me that she was moving to a point of acceptance in the film: part of that is accepting where you've been, who you are, and the choices that you've made in order to move forward."
For an actress as well as a Queen it's a philosophy that works well.
ANWAR BRETT
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