Cate Blanchett Meets Up With Prince William in a Suit Fit for a Queen

One of them is globally recognized royalty and the other is a father of three, but the Earthshot Prize Awards in Singapore brought Cate Blanchett and Prince William together today. The yearly ceremony, founded in 2020 by William and Sir David Attenborough, recognizes and provides grants to organizations working on behalf of environmental innovation—and touched down in Southeast Asia this year to present the 2023 awards.

Blanchett was on hand to present one of the awards, and dressed for the environmentally conscious occasion. Although the Oscar winner has made a sustainably minded point of rewearing red carpet outfits, this time she opted for a gold brocade suit from Stella McCartney’s spring 2024 collection. While McCartney’s label has long been a champion of luxury sustainability (even before it was a trend), her most recent collection was touted as the house’s most responsible yet. The brand claims it was “crafted from 95 percent responsible materials” that included yarn made from seaweed, recycled glass, repurposed silk, organic cottons, and vegan leathers crafted from the byproduct of grapes used to produce Champagne.

Of course, knowing Blanchett, we’ll probably see her in the suit once more.

Notably, Blanchett and McCartney are also both members of the 13-person council that governs the awards. “The overwhelming nature of the challenge of tackling climate change, and the urgency of it, can lead to despair and apathy I think quite quickly,” Blanchett told BBC News of her involvement with the organization. “And so for this to be harnessing that urgency but in an optimistic way, in a solution-based way, I found gave me personally an enormous amount of courage.”

Film fans, no doubt, will pick up on Blanchett’s other ties to the British royal family. She rose to worldwide fame playing Queen Elizabeth I in 1998’s Elizabeth. Although Elizabeth I is not Prince William’s direct ancestor (for more on this, see: British history), Blanchett did also once play William’s grandmother. Sort of. She voiced a single line of dialogue as an animated Queen Elizabeth II for a 2012 episode of Family Guy.

Unfortunately, Cate did not get to meet Kate this time. Princess Catherine didn’t make the trip with Prince William this year. “Catherine is very sorry she can’t be here,” William told attendees in a speech. “She is helping [Prince] George through his first set of major exams.”