Cate Blanchett reveals she's had a 'chainsaw accident' during lockdown
Cate Blanchett has revealed that she suffered a minor “chainsaw accident” while isolating at her Sussex home.
The actress, 51, admitted that she had been left with “a little nick to the head” after the incident in an appearance on former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s podcast, A Podcast Of One’s Own.
When Gillard, 58, asked the Oscar winner how she was finding the lockdown period, she answered: “I'm fine. I had a bit of a chainsaw accident yesterday, which sounds very, very exciting, but it wasn't.
“Apart from the little nick to the head, I'm fine.”
Gillard, the former leader of Australia’s Labour Party, advised Blanchett to “be very careful with that chainsaw,” adding: “You've got a very famous head, I don't think people would like to see any nicks taken out of it.”
In the interview, Blanchett opened up about life in lockdown with her family, playwright Andrew Upton and their children Dashiell, 18, Roman, 16, Ignatius, 12, and Edith, five.
The star revealed that she had taken a year off from work to “be with” her eldest son Dashiell and “support him through exam period” as he took his A-Levels, however coronavirus has meant that his exams have been cancelled.
“And then all of this exam stuff evaporated [as schools closed] and I'm left with an 18-year-old who doesn't really want to have anything to do with me!” she joked.
Blanchett with husband Andrew Upton (Don Arnold/Getty Images)
"So it's a little bit discombobulating, but it's a high-class problem, we're all well."
She said she is now focusing on “being a kindergarten teacher to my five-year-old, which is just as challenging.”
“I have a huge respect for the teaching profession,” she added. “I always have.”
The family were previously based in Blanchett’s home country Australia but moved to the United Kingdom in 2016.
Blanchett was working on Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming horror movie Nightmare Alley, which also features Bradley Cooper and her Carol co-star Rooney Mara, before production was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Read more
Powerful women were behind the best of the 2020 Berlin Film Festival
