OCEAN’S CATE

Cate Blanchett Locates Her Moral Compass in Her Vagina

An International Women’s Day story for everyone.


Cate Blanchett photographed by Juergen Teller, styled by Poppy Kain; W Magazine February 2014

Cate Blanchett is generally a good sport about indulging in late-night chit-chat. If she’s a guest on your talk show, she will school you about your American ignorance on the worth of Vegemite, or she’ll share her vigorous youthful hatred of plastic bags, or she’ll tell you what she’s thinking about gardening. But, while patience is a virtue, it is not a bottomless one. So despite host Stephen Colbert’s attempts to play philosopher on The Late Show on Friday night during a high-minded bit, Blanchett got right to the point.

This explains why we did not get a lengthy and nuanced conversation about morality and what goodness or kindness means in an awful world from the host and his guest.

Instead, we got the following exchange:

“Cate Blanchett, what is your moral compass? Where does kindness and humanity sit in a brutal world? Because those are important questions right now,” Colbert inquired.

“In my vagina,” Blanchett responded.

No follow-up questions needed, really. A re-watch of the moment in which Blanchett adjusts her voice into a nasally tone to deliver the concise answer in question may, however, be in order. If only all morality was as clear-cut as Blanchett’s utter certainty in the virtue of her vagina.

Elsewhere in Blanchett’s recent Late Show appearance, the actress—who is currently starring in The Present on the New York theater scene—discussed the cinematic result of the year’s best paparazzi shots from the set of Ocean’s 8. Making a comedic killing out of the frustrating state of women in Hollywood, Blanchett joked that the reason Ocean’s 8 literally fails to measure up to Ocean’s 11 in terms of numbers is because, “There’s only eight women working in Hollywood.”

Yes, and if Blanchett’s recent artistic output tells us anything, she might actually be all eight of them.

Cate Blanchett Saw Her First Sex Scene in Third Grade: