Cate Blanchett’s relationship with her husband, Australian playwright and director Andrew Upton, is the story of a love, marriage and professional partnership spanning nearly three decades.
It all started in the mid-1990s, when Upton saw the star of his now-wife in a work by Anton Chekhov Seagull Held at Belvoir St. Theatre, Sydney. According to Blanchett, the two didn’t like each other at first. “He thinks I’m cold and I think he’s arrogant,” the Australian actress told vanity fair 1999. But once he kissed me, that was it.
Indeed. Within three weeks of meeting, the couple became engaged and married in 1997. , and daughter Edith.
Below, learn more about Cate Blanchett’s husband, playwright and director Andrew Upton.
He is an Australian playwright, screenwriter, director and producer.
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Like Blanchett, Upton is Australian. He grew up in Sydney and wrote his first play at the age of 16 after seeing the work of Harold Pinter betray On a school trip. He went on to study at the University of Sydney.
Upton, 58, has amassed an impressive resume directing, producing and writing on stage and screen during a career spanning several decades. His work includes adaptations of works by Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, Maxim Gorky, and work for the Sydney Theater Company (of which he and Bretchett served as co-artistic directors from 2008 to 2012) and further productions at the Royal National Theater in London.
He and Blanchett got engaged three weeks after meeting.
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When you know, you know, and Upton knew that when he met Blanchett. When the playwright saw Blanchett playing the aspiring actress Nina Zarechnaya in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, he was stunned: “I must have seen that [that production] 13 or 14 times,” Upton told the Sunday Morning Herald in 2023. “[Blanchett’s] Nina is dangerously naive. Too fragile for the world.
Although Blanchett has since said the two didn’t like each other when they first met, sparks quickly flew. In a 2015 interview with Ellen Degeneres, the Tarr actress explained that Blanchett knew Upton was the one after just three days of dating. “We were in bed, just like you were three days later, [Andrew] Said, ‘Kate,’ and I thought, ‘He’s going to propose to me and I have to say yes.’ And he said, ‘No, I’m hungry, do you want to go get something to eat?’ (Her instincts were right, though—Upton did ask her about three weeks later, and she heartily said yes.)
In a 1999 interview with Vanity Fair, Blanchett also explained what makes Upton unique and their connection: “[Andrew is] She is one of the few people I know who is down to earth and has her heart set on the stars,” she said. “He can stretch between the sky and the earth. These people are very rare.
He and Blanchett share four children.
Since marrying nearly three decades ago, Upton and Blanchett have chosen to keep much of their personal lives private. However, the two have four children: sons Dashiel, Roman and Ignatius, and daughter Edith, whom they adopted in 2015.
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He and Blanchett are business partners and collaborators.
Upton and Blanchett are also renowned professional partners and collaborators. The pair were co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theater Company from 2008 to 2012 and were co-founders of production company Dirty Films, which distributed the first feature-length Australian film small fish2005. carol- Blanchett starred in it, for which she was nominated for Best Actress – also a co-production with Dirty Films.
The company’s latest projects, Disclaimeris a psychological thriller limited series starring Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen and Kody Smit-McPhee, which will premiere on Apple TV+ in October 2024.
In a 2008 interview independentUpton explains why he loves working with his wife. “This is great,” he said. “We’ve always worked together in some way. You might have the weird thought of, ‘No, no, no, we have to do this,’ but in the end, you can say, ‘Oh, okay, then next year I’ll do this. And struggle. “This collaborative approach is a very important part of theater – it [a] Compromise increases, not decreases.
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He’s nothing if not practical (about anniversary gifts).
Upton’s idea of anniversary gifts is simple. Interviewed by UK publication 2020 MirrorBlanchett said Upton gave her a vacuum cleaner and a blender on their first two wedding anniversaries. “It used to be silver and gold, but now the list includes coffee machines and irons,” she joked. And eternal.