Cate Blanchett: Nobody’s getting older – they just look like Barbie dolls

By Hannah Roberts, PA Entertainment Reporter

Cate Blanchett has said that, thanks to technology and Instagram filters, “nobody’s getting older – they just look like Barbie dolls”.

The 54-year-old Australian actress and producer, who is known for her roles in Carol and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, said she does not feel “regret or shame” when she looks back at photos and sees how she has aged.

Speaking to The Sunday Times about ageing and beauty filters, she said: “Nobody’s getting older – they just look like Barbie dolls.

“It’s not the ageing I find confronting at all.

“Because that is like when you stumble across a photo of a holiday when you were 16 or one of my husband and me when we got married. It doesn’t produce regret or shame.

“Rather, a recognition of the joy of the experience, or a painful moment. I’m transported right back.”

Discussing how it feels to look back at her decades-long career, she said: “I feel irked.

“It’s out of context. They’re just bits.

“Like ‘Here are the breasts.’ ‘Hands.’ ‘A bunion.’

“If you put the whole person together it makes more sense. I find it disconcerting.”

The two-time Oscar-winner plays a nun in film The New Boy which explores colonialism and religion, and pondered on her own experience growing up as a Christian in Australia.

She said: “As a child I wanted a religion.

“I wanted the strong hand of God to put a hand on my childish shoulders to say ‘Your (late) father is with me. He’s having fun. You’ll see him in 60 years.’

“But that didn’t happen. And so, as a 10-year-old, I fled from the church and moved down to the river and spent my childhood propelled into nature.

“If I’d stayed inside the Methodist Church I’d have a lot of bad guitar playing, but instead I rode my bike, thinking I was Nancy Drew, down by the Yarra River.

“I remember that as profoundly as I remember the hymns.”

The actress explored Australian colonialism when she co-created and executively produced the 2020 TV mini-series Stateless, which touches on issues of asylum and the country’s immigration system.

Blanchett has won Oscars for her roles in The Aviator (2004) and Blue Jasmine (2013) and in 2023 she won the best leading actress Bafta award for her role playing a composer/conductor in Tar.