Cate Blanchett says there is a ‘clear lack of shame’ in modern society | Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett spoke about the “clear lack of shame” in modern society while discussing her new Apple TV+ series, Disclaimer.
Blanchett’s character, Catherine Ravenscroft, faces public humiliation in the seven-part psychological thriller. Asked at the Venice Film Festival how society’s shaming of women has changed in recent years and how she approaches the role as a woman, the Australian actress and filmmaker said: “I always approach every role as a woman, because I am a woman. I don’t really think about it.”
“There is a distinct lack of shame in society today. Shame is very different from guilt. Guilt is a very useless emotion, I don’t know what we do with it. But shame and regret, and the lessons we can learn from them, are very powerful.”
Blanchett added, however, that there was a lot of “shame” in society.
“Just look at the way you’re trying to raise your children. If you publicly humiliate them, it can make them angry. Private conversations are often much more powerful than public conversations. I’m not saying public conversations aren’t important, but face-to-face reconciliation conversations are much more powerful than public humiliations.”
The psychological thriller, set to premiere Thursday on the Lido, is the first big-budget series from five-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón. Based on the best-selling novel by Renée Knight, it tells the story of an acclaimed journalist who discovers she is the protagonist of a novel that threatens to reveal her darkest secret.
As Catherine struggles to uncover the identity of the anonymous writer, she is forced to confront her past before it destroys her life and her relationships with her husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and their son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The series also stars Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville and Indira Varma as the narrator.
“We all have dark sides,” Blanchett said. “I think there’s a belief system that if people don’t tell you everything, they have a dark side to hide. It’s called privacy.”
“We think that if people are not honest, they do bad things, but maybe we are dealing with them ourselves. I play a woman who has things that she has buried, traumatic things.”
The actor referenced Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Remembers, which deals with the effects of psychological trauma. “The way trauma can stay in the body at a cellular level, and what happens to repressed memories. I found that fascinating and quite painful, and I was very grateful not to be in the same space.”
Asked if her outfit for the series premiere would be notable after walking the Cannes red carpet in a dress reminiscent of the Palestinian flag, Blanchett joked: “I’m going naked.”
Cuarón, whose previous films include Children of Men and Roma, spoke about his foray into television. “I don’t know how to make a TV show, it’s probably too late to learn at this point in my life. We approached it like a movie.”
He admitted that it may have been a “miscalculation” on his part. “It takes longer to shoot a movie, and there were seven movies. It was a very long process, I really felt for the actors,” he said.
