Top 15 Cate Blanchett Quotes

If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously.

Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.

"You know you're a pessimist when you win an Oscar and think, "Oh God, I've peaked.

The world’s changed. It’s very difficult to know where to be. Because sometimes life is so fast and so absolute that the only way you can change things is by actually shifting your life utterly and totally to a different hemisphere. You can’t partially change. There’s no semi-revolution.

I think that's what I love about my life. There's no maniacal master plan. It's just unfolding before me.

I'm not very cautious or careful. It's always been more about having a variety of experiences than any planned trajectory... I think that in a way, projects choose you.

No one is ever who they purport to be. And I suppose I'm most interested in the gap between who we project socially and who we really are.

You know you've made it when you've been moulded in miniature plastic. But you know what children do with Barbie dolls - it's a bit scary, actually.

For me, the roles are the secondary part of the whole process to me strangely. It's about who you're being directed by and who the other actors are. Whenever I read a script, I think, 'wow, that's a great story,' and invariably I want to play one of the other characters, and the process of working out how to play the character you're offered is to work out why you aren't playing the other characters in a way. Maybe that's why I play roles of various different sizes. The challenge is not necessarily always the lead role, but in this case [Blue Jasmine] it was all those things combined.

In my career, I thought I've never wanted to get anywhere in particular. I just wanted to work with interesting people on interesting projects.

I remember when I came out of drama school I'd seen a lot of actors, brilliant actors who didn't work very often. And when you're starting out, there's more rejection than there is acceptance, and I said to myself, “I’ll give it five years. I don’t think I have a strong enough mettle to deal with the rejections."

It's not just women in film, 18-year-old girls feel pressure to do preventative injecting. I see someone's face, someone's body who'd had children and I think they're the song lines of your experience, and why would you want to eradicate that? I look at people sort of entombing themselves and all you see is little pin holes of terror... and you think, just live your life, death is not going to be any easier just because your face can't move.

Of course one worries about getting older - we're all fearful of death, let's not kid ourselves. I'm simply not panicking as my laugh lines grow deeper. Who wants a face with no history, no sense of humor?

I've done a lot of talking over the past six years. My husband and I have been running the Sydney Theatre Company and it's been magic – my kids have been able to see so many of those transient moments between acting and real life behind the scenes. But now that I've given it up I'm looking forward to being a bit quieter. I'm very conscious of that. There have been times when I've heard myself in the past and thought: "Aw, just shut up."

It's been an enormous challenge and enormously gratifying. Andrew and I wanted to travel less and the opportunity of living and working in Sydney was irresistible, especially when it came to being able to give our children roots. I also felt drawn to the stimulating kind of environment that the theatre offers in a way that is completely different from film. To direct a company has its own challenges, and there's nothing like the terror and thrill that comes from performing live in front of an audience. So it's been a marvellous experience for both of us.