UNITED KINGDOM: Attending the UK premiere of 'Little Fish', Cate Blanchett dismisses retirement rumours

Cate Blanchett on Sunday (July 16) put an end to rumours about her retirement and relocation to Australia. The Oscar-winning actress, who is currently filming 'The Golden Age', a film about the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh in the UK, said she felt like retiring after every film or theatre production she worked on wrapped up. "I'm always, every time I make a film, every time I do a play I'm always saying 'That's it, I'm never doing it again'. Which is great because every time you do a project you have to be seduced back," she said, adding however, that she did see many opportunities in her native Australia. "I think Australia is for me, has always been and for my husband, it's a wealth of opportunities, it's not like going back and life ends. It sort of feels like life begins in a way and that's the theatrical community that we are from, our families there," she said. Media reports have quoted Blanchett saying she wants to settle down and have more children. The 37-year-old mother of two was in London to promote 'Little Fish', her first Australian feature film since 'Oscar and Lucinda' in 1997. The film from director Rowan Woods tells the story of 32-year-old Tracy Heart, a recovering drug-addict whose attempts at establishing a normal life are interrupted by ghosts from the past. Woods, whom Blanchett had long wanted to work with, has summarised the theme of his film as the 'Generation X dilemma', a notion Blanchett agreed on. "It's a pocket of people's lives that is absolutely forgotten and cinema never focuses on. The twenties is what is sort of sexy and now and happening and it's your moment and window of opportunity and if you miss that, you know, if you stuff that up, then kind of, all the doors close and that's the position that my character is in and also is a recovering drug addict so she can't even make the first tentative baby steps towards reassembling her life," she said. The film, which went on to win five AFI (Australian Film Institute) awards, including a best actress nod for Blanchett, also stars Hugo Weaving, Martin Henderson and Sam Neill. Neill plays criminal boss 'The Jockey' whose complicated relationship with Tracy's family friend ex-footballer Lionel Dawson, played by Weaving, and underworld dealings provide the darkest sequences in the film. The actor said making the film was an eye-opener to a world he previously knew very little of. "I went out and sold drugs for a year," Neill joked. "No, it's really something I know nothing about, I do now, but I knew nothing about it before. It's a sort of a whole underbelly of Sydney life that's all new territory for me, but a very interesting place to be," he said. Martin Henderson plays Blanchett's younger brother, an addict who is coming to terms with recently losing his leg. Henderson said he based his character on careful research carried out by director Woods, adding that staying true to these characters was the ultimate objective for the cast members. "I felt a real responsibility to the real life versions of these people because all the characters are really true to life, they are really three-dimensional they are based on actual people and actual suburbanites in Sydney. So I think we were all aware that we were basically representing real-life characters, not that it is, it is not based on a true story but it certainly is a true to life story and I think that was a big challenge to try to make the characters real," he said. Henderson, originally from New Zealand, has seen his star rise in Hollywood, following his performances in films like 'The Ring' and 'Bride and Prejudice'. The former Sydney flatmate of Heath Ledger, however, made an unexpected career move signing to a low budget Australian film instead of concentrating on building a name in Hollywood. "As fun as it is working in Hollywood and you know, and it's exciting and everything, the things that I think I have been involved with there didn't really allow me to exercise my creativity maybe in the same way and really immerse myself into a character and that the quality of the writing of this project you don't find very often. And of course to work with people like Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill and Hugo Weaving, it was a pretty easy decision. I think it was the best experience I have had given , whether in Hollywood or not," he explained. The change provided by 'Little Fish' gave Henderson the needed push and upon finishing up in Australia, the young actor sacked his agent in Los Angeles and took a new direction. He currently stars opposite Juliette Lewis in the West End version of Sam Shephard's 'Fool For Love'. 'Little Fish' opens in the UK and Ireland on July 21, 2006.

ITN Source | July 20, 2006

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