  Cate Blanchett was reluctant to reprise her titular role as the Virgin Queen in the sequel to 1998's Elizabeth.
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BEVERLY HILLS -- Cate Blanchett, pale and lithe and regal, is no stranger to holding court. As fictitious and not-so-fictitious monarchs and rulers, she has addressed legions, led thousands and counselled even the denizens of Middle Earth. And, frankly, a segue from dwarves and hobbits to gawking, persnickety entertainment journalists doesn't seem so unreasonable a stretch. Yet today, on a Saturday morning at the plush Beverly Wilshire hotel, Blanchett is more sheepish than commanding.
Regarding the digital recording devices gathered on the table in front of her, she smiles gingerly before adjusting them to allow herself scant elbow room.
"I promise I'm not going to turn any of them off -- although I'd like to."
And, in Blanchett's case, you believe her. These days the 38-year-old Melbourne-raised actress is the exception, not the rule -- a film star known more for her work than her scandals. If other performers are willing to turn exchanges with the media into public confessionals, then Blanchett is the elusive opposite.
"I'm not interested in playing myself," she says matter-of-factly. "That's like having conversations with only like-minded people -- you get a very skewed perception of how the world works. So I like having conversations with characters who think in different ways than me ... I don't ever want to feel like I'm going backwards."
Which, understandably enough, explains her reluctance in reprising her titular role in a sequel to 1998's Elizabeth. After all, since the original, she has cultivated a reputation as one of Hollywood's most dexterous actresses, appearing in everything from The Lord of the Rings to The Aviator (for which she won an Oscar for her portrayal of screen icon Katharine Hepburn) to Babel, opposite Brad Pitt. Why would she bother repeating one of her earliest successes? The Golden Age arrives Friday then as the result of no small amount of arm-twisting. For that, credit -- or blame, if you don't care for the film -- fellow actor Geoffrey Rush who, with director Shekhar Kapur, wore Blanchett down.
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Remembers Rush, "From Cate's point of view, she may have felt this is a role I've already played and as you can see from her repertoire since she first blazed onto the scene 10 years ago, she's a very exploratory risk-taker. Maybe she felt reinventing the same character would not be as great a challenge as she would've liked."
Yet Rush, himself an Oscar winner for Shine, persevered. His motives in convincing Blanchett to board the project were, he admits, not entirely unselfish. "I wanted to watch her rev up those Rolls Royce engines."
Set in 1585, three decades into Elizabeth's reign, The Golden Age finds England besieged by a fundamentalist Catholicism sweeping across 16th century Europe -- epitomized by Spain and its feared Inquisition. Meanwhile, Elizabeth struggles with her own never-to-be-fulfilled feelings for adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh, who romances her favourite lady-in-waiting, Bess (Abbie Cornish). Rush, as Sir Francis Walsingham, returns to ferret out traitors who may include Mary Stuart (Samantha Morton).
Yet for all the historical heft of the aforementioned events -- you'd probably be reading this in Spanish right now if not for England -- the sequel is more historical fantasy as re-incarnated fact.
Says Blanchett, "I'm fascinated by history and (Kapur) is utterly disinterested."
Counters the filmmaker, "I would describe everything as fiction ... History's always been an interpretation."
So rather than a cut-and-dry retelling of events, he envisioned The Golden Age as a fable that had clear parallels to today's geo-political landscape of upheaval, war and religious fundamentalism.
"Civilizations that don't learn from history are doomed to make the same mistake again and again," he says.
"For me personally, there is a context and subtext to the film. The first film is about Elizabeth fighting external forces within her court. If you notice the design, there was darkness around her... (In The Golden Age) it is much more an internal battle. Here, the threat is a darkness coming from outside -- coming in the form of the Inquisition."
Says Blanchett, "It's an unabashedly romantic film and it's quite different. It didn't feel like we were treading the same ground."
Key to this was the addition of Owen as Raleigh.
"I think every woman who works with Clive has incredible romantic chemistry with him," Blanchett says.
"He's very frank and open and not self-consciousness -- which is incredibly attractive when someone is as attractive as he is."
With The Golden Age concluded, the question naturally turns to the matter of a third film. Rush, for one, would welcome a trilogy-capper. Blanchett, not surprisingly, is non-committal. And in no need of work. In January, she and her husband, who have two sons, take the reins as co-directors of the Sydney Theatre Company. Next year, she will be seen in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opposite Pitt as well as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which she reportedly menaces Harrison Ford.
Given her schedule, could it take another decade before the third Elizabeth chapter is complete?
"I hope not," Kapur says. "I really hope not. I think Cate will survive, but I may not."
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