Cate Blanchett in "Oscar and Lucinda"

spk_0:   0:00
What do you do on Sunday? Way talked about Cate Blanchett, The act, the costume, the award. But mostly blanche it of it all. You think this is a thistle is Sunday's escape and I'm your host for Todd. Welcome to some days we skate a podcast series about the films of Cate Blanchett. This is your host, Mortada Flood. And for today's episode, we are discussing the 1997 film Oscar and Lucinda that start Kate and refines and was directed by Gillian Armstrong. And my guest is Andy Stewart. Hi, Andy.

spk_1:   0:50
Hi. How are you?

spk_0:   0:51
Good. Oscar and Lucinda, which is one of the very few K movies that I have haven't seen. So this is the first time I saw this movie last night, but I was something to you, And you said that you liked it. So was this since this was before Elizabeth, Was this your first time that you saw? Okay.

spk_1:   1:08
No. So Elizabeth actually was my first introduction. Decay KT like most people. So I saw it in the theater and I was like, Who is this actress? And when I was younger, I became very obsessed with actresses. Like when I would see them. I'd be like, I love this person. I have to know everything about them. I have to see everything that they've ever been in. And so after Elizabeth, I saw it, I think, Well, I was living in Ohio. So, like it was opening weekend for Ohio. But it was like, two months after it actually had been like out. And then I was like, she was

spk_0:   1:43
probably Oscar nominated already.

spk_1:   1:45
Well, not yet. It was like techno. It was like December. So it was like the buzz of like, who was this person? So I saw her and I was like, Oh, my God, she's amazing. I love everything about her. So then I was like, But who is she? So then I had to go back, and I saw that she had done Paradise Road, and I saw that she had done this movie. Oscar Lucinda and I honestly hadn't heard of Oscar and Lucinda until I became, like, enamored with her and tried to figure out like who she wasthe. This is also the early days of the Internet, So you couldn't just like google someone and find out everything about, um so, like there was the Internet, but it

spk_0:   2:20
was unlike in our

spk_1:   2:21
pocket that you were like that. We see everything about

spk_0:   2:25
Catherine. At least blend shirt was born. We got to go find back issues of entertainment weekly.

spk_1:   2:31
Yeah, exactly. And then also, I got them from the library. That's how I saw them like VHS copies from the library. So I got Ostrom loosened up. I got on Paradise Road. That's dedication. I know, right? So I saw that. So I watched Oscar and Lucinda that way after I had already seen Elizabeth. So I was, like, familiar with who she waas on. I just at the time I really liked it. I really loved it. I thought it was very romantic. I thought it was very like that. I thought it was a literary adaption that just felt like I had all the this, like, heaving emotions with it. But I do have to say I did not feel the same way. Rewatching. It s

spk_0:   3:15
so we'll talk about that. Yes, but I have one thing that we could mention about else. Final scene that Elizabeth is that Shakar Kapur who directed Elizabeth. So stills of the movie or the trailer off Australian singer or something. And that's why he cascading Elizabeth. So we actually have to thank this movie for Elizabeth. I mean, Kate is such a talent that she would have broke out with something else. We wasn't Elizabeth, but it was a direct result of this

spk_1:   3:42
just from stills. Though

spk_0:   3:44
I think it was just from cells. I think Emily Emily Watson was cast, or they were negotiating. There is something, and he's like, No, changed my mind.

spk_1:   3:52
Yeah. Emily Watson is gonna be Elizabeth. Yeah. Mmm mmm. I'm glad that Kate got it instead. And I

spk_0:   4:00
know, right? I love Watson, but like

spk_1:   4:03
I do too. But I really because, you know, because she doesn't have, like, that power, she doesn't have that presence that, like a blanche can command. Like

spk_0:   4:12
commit. She can't command away like Kate. So what is your favorite cake performance?

spk_1:   4:17
I would probably have to say, Elizabeth, I haven't seen it in a while. And when I like, listen to your podcast about it, I was like, Oh, maybe it isn't a good movie. I don't remember. But I remember at the time when I saw that I loved it and because it is my first introduction to Kate, has that like special place in my heart. My mind too. Exactly. She's so good in it. Like the movie might not be good. Debatable, but she is really great. And

spk_0:   4:46
she's great. Yeah, and it is the reason why a lot of us loved her. So yes, that's still there. You can change your mind 21 years into a love affair. So what do you think of when you think of K?

spk_1:   4:58
I think of one of our best actresses working today. Everyone says she's the new Meryl Street because she's so chameleon like because she does do she has that dichotomy of, like being able to do, have the emotion behind the performance. But then she also is able to bring that depict Technically, Yeah, the technicality. Yes, it's like she trained. She went thio The Australia Institute of Dramatic Arts. Yeah, just spent five years doing stage work before she even did film work. I used to be an actor, sir, once upon a time, and I took a like a one off class with like an Australian person, and he was like the reason the Australian people are such great actors is because they've harnessed the emotions that Americans have and the technicality that the British have, and they've married it to form this this perfect union of acting. It's like, OK

spk_0:   6:02
on. And you think that Kate has that right?

spk_1:   6:05
I do think she has that. Yeah, but let's start

spk_0:   6:08
digging into our film this week, Oscar and listen So Stern. Lucinda was released in 1997. It's directed by Julian Armstrong, who at that point was coming off Little Women, which was a huge hit. Just love little women. Yes, just a couple of years before this. And of course you did. The my brilliant career was Judy Davis, which was, I think, her big break out. And then she worked Risk it again in Charlotte Gray a few years after this. But Oscar and Lucinda is about Oscar, played by Ray Fines. Who's a priest? So, Minister, Minister? Okay, a minister,

spk_1:   6:42
because I think priests are only in the Catholic Church and he is like Anglican or like us, has that scene where he had, like, goes off to the Anglicans, which were less prudish than whatever sect. Hiss, Father Waas

spk_0:   6:56
Yes, and Kate is Lucinda, who is an Australian heiress, and they both love to gamble. And this is how they need because they both have to gamble, and then the movies about this bet they make against each other. They both bet their fortune where their inheritance in sort of delivering this glass church from somewhere in Australia to somewhere even deeper into Australia, is it's the movie that the plot is crazy.

spk_1:   7:26
It is crazy and a little vague. Yeah, like you can tell it was based on a novel, cause they're like we have to put all of this in it. But then they don't really explain how we get to those points. I feel like,

spk_0:   7:37
Yeah, but then I think the thrust of the narrative is that they are these, like he's a priest and she's a woman. So in the 18th century, so they both have these institution institutional sort of restraints on their life, and the gambling is sort of the adventurous, lively thing that they both want to do. But because he's a priest in, she's a woman, they can't do so. I guess that's what the marriage is about. Forget the church and all the other the blast

spk_1:   8:09
search. But we have a face. Well, it's two oddballs that, like have found each other in this crazy world and, like, feel like they fit together. I feel like I think that's like what the the narrative Arch is.

spk_0:   8:23
Yes, and this movie is weird in that it starts with them as Children. As narrated by Geoffrey Rush, I don't know why. Who plays like He's Australian Lineu, I guess. Yeah, she's lost her. And the movie highs off all these Australian actress. So Richard Roxborough, who has worked with Skate on stage a lot, including on Broadway at Sydney and everywhere is the villain like he wasn't Mullan Rouge. I

spk_1:   8:50
think that's all he plays right

spk_0:   8:53
in movies. Yes, yeah, he plays difference things on stage, and so every Australian actor is in it. But it starts with those Children, and Geoffrey Rush, the narrator, is, I guess, Oscar's grandchild or child grandchild grandchild. So he's narrating this about how he came to be, I guess, which is funny, because it's his grandfather's story. So it ends not with him being born, but it was his father being born on, so because they started them as Children. Kate doesn't appear until 13 minutes. And when they caught two older, listen, owner, I guess it's she a teenager in her early twenties, I'm not quite

spk_1:   9:30
sure. I think she's still supposed to be younger, like early teens. But because the scenes are so young, they're just like, Oh, she can sell it

spk_0:   9:39
And she doesn't mean Kate looks very young here. You sure

spk_1:   9:41
does look so young, right? Yeah, Baby face,

spk_0:   9:44
baby Face. You still got all that fat. And I know her famous cheekbones are non yet developed.

spk_1:   9:51
I know that there's like scenes where she's like reading letters, and I was like, Escape plan should have a double chin Oh,

spk_0:   9:56
my God! And it's our old teeth, even though her oldies are in Elizabeth's, too. So yeah, so she's very, very young in it, and she does pass for the team name. So I thought basically, this was kind of a very odd eccentric tail. Just you know, we just talked about this plot, which is a crazy plot. Yeah, and so the whole movie is like that.

spk_1:   10:19
Well, it's based on a book that won the Man Booker Prize in by

spk_0:   10:25
Peter Carry.

spk_1:   10:26
Yeah, that back in 1988. So I'm guessing that the time the book was like a huge hit, otherwise, like it wouldn't have won these prizes or like a beast, that people were interested enough to laying by the rights to turn it into a movie. I guess it had been like kicking around for a little bit because Gillian Armstrong wasn't the first person to get it. Someone else. Africa, who itwas had the rights initially, but then he was Jewish. Schlessinger. They couldn't make it work, so then she took it over. And so the movie came out almost 10 years after the book, which is not really like the time to strike, You know what I mean? Like, did people even know what that book was in 1997 at that point? So I think that they tried to what so much of that book into the story that that's why it's very strange

spk_0:   11:18
that the thing was adaptations, right? Because books are at the language, and when you translate the language to cinema, it's not. It doesn't always translate, and sometimes you're just broke down in the plot. Yeah, and so it becomes just a strange plot.

spk_1:   11:31
Well, then, also they have Jeffrey rest during the voiceover narrative because I think it wasn't a novel. And so, like, the language was probably beautiful in the novel, so that's that's how they kept it in. They were just like, we're just gonna literally read from the novel now.

spk_0:   11:47
But you'll like this movie when you saw it in today. So tell me why you liked it then.

spk_1:   11:52
So I really did like, back in the day on, and I can still see like the parts of it that I liked. But the reason I loved it is because I thought it was so. It was like a tragic love story. And so I was really into those when I was younger, like I saw Titanic like 12 times in the theatre, which was the same year. But I was like, obsessed with these, like tragic love stories, which probably explains why I've been single for most of my adult life. Uh, but I just thought that, like, that's what romance was, you had to suffer like it was just so beautiful, and I also loved, like how lyrical, like watching that glass church like Float down the River Waas. But now, watching it, I just feel like that love story. I don't buy it. I feel like it's a plot point that they put onto it because that's what it is. But I don't feel first of all, I feel like great finds is very a sexual in this, So I don't I feel like

spk_0:   12:52
the biggest. He's a priest. You are, I

spk_1:   12:55
don't know. He's just so like, mannered and the whole thing. Like he has all these ticks and like all these hand gestures around his face

spk_0:   13:04
and is laying the card from a bit childlike.

spk_1:   13:07
Yeah, and I'm not buying it this time, and I feel like Kate's doing a lot of heavy lifting because I believe it on her end. I believe that she is in love with Oscar, but I don't feel anything from him. I do like the to the way that the two play off each other. I just don't see romance between the two.

spk_0:   13:26
My my problem is the romance was that it's such a small part of the film. Yeah, they films such as the Children they don't need until 40 minutes into this two hour movie, and then they're together very for a short amount of time. And then he goes on this expedition where and then we lose gated forever way we have to follow him while he's taking this glass turds through ah, war, even if it's not really it's not a war war, but it's kind of warlike. Yeah, And then he was just like What is happening? Where is the romance where Escape. So it's such a condensed time in the film, and this is why I don't think the romance work for me. Also, I do think that part in the middle of the movie where they meet is the best part of felt like I love that first scene where they play off each other where she goes and asks him because he's a priest like will you hear my confession? And then he goes and finds her. And then they start the confession because they're both gamblers and she knows that he's a gambler and he knows me. He knows she's a gambler, too, and so she's confessing to him. But she basically wants to play him, and he wants to play, and it's such a great scene and they play off each other so well there.

spk_1:   14:39
Well, that's why she sees him initially because she knows that he's a gambler. Like when she protects you, like pretends to bump into him events as like, Oh, do you take confession on Dhe like she's just playing with them because she knows that she can get him. Thio come and gamble with her.

spk_0:   14:58
Yeah, so I think they could have done more that that playfulness is they were both is the best thing they both do in this movie, and I guess Kate, because she's not in the big, huge part that they go on that expedition. She she gets to be playful from most of her type onscreen. But then rape gets bumped down and all the other things he has to do and those air not as interesting as this interplay between them. And I think, the chemistry between them, maybe to your point, because his performance is the species. A little child like that, it's not Greening was fire, but it is playful and fun to watch.

spk_1:   15:35
Yeah, I do love that scene where they're playing off of each other, and she has that line where she is confessing that I love when she plays with her voice and she's like I I was gambling. I did this just like I even tried to convince someone to take me to a cock fight. They wouldn't do it, of course, but I would have gone. And that's just like, like the way it actually does survive like drops. Her voice is like, but I would have gone. I love it.

spk_0:   15:59
She's always an amazing actor, his voice impeccable. You know, we just did an episode of Benjamin Button, and this is like a steam I found this cage. Is that Carol aside, The love story that she's in are always weird.

spk_1:   16:13
Well, maybe she doesn't want to do just like a straight love story.

spk_0:   16:16
I think that's probably it.

spk_1:   16:18
They're probably boring, though, right? Like you get a 1,000,000 script. That's just like they're in love and it works out great. Or like it doesn't work out great. But it's just like so conventional that she probably wants to do something a little weird.

spk_0:   16:31
Yeah, totally. Because Benjamin Button is weird and even peril, which is an epic romance. It's also about so many other things. And then you have something like little sesh witches for Australian movie, which is not entirely a love story, but the love story is a big part of it, but also it's about somebody in recovery. So she never goes for straight love stories. And I guess I like the love story. I thought it was not the love story, but just them together was the best part of the film. So I wanted more of that.

spk_1:   17:00
Yeah, well, even that playful scene were like there washing the floor together to remember, and they're like trying to see who can, like, reach the middle of the floor of the fastest like that was such a cute like them playing off of each other. I mean, it did it, like, stops the plot death in its tracks. But it was such like a fun scene that I didn't mind.

spk_0:   17:21
Yeah, and the thing is, when you have active, charismatic, escaping reclines you, you should stop the plot and give us a couple more scenes with them playing off each other. The other thing that I like is that this is a costume drama. It's It's very off those nineties costume drama lately you see, like the way the camera moves, you know, the meticulous costumes. But I think the performances and just the way they move their body moves in this moving is not like costume dramas, like If you see Kate moving like her, she lifts her skirts up and she's on the floor and rave is doing this, you know, child priest and his spaces going left and right and up and down and everything so they do not look like in a Masterpiece Theatre, which was fun to watch.

spk_1:   18:09
Yeah, well, also, she has her bloomers. So you already know that she's not your typical lady.

spk_0:   18:16
Yes, absolutely. And this is the other thing that I think this may be why Gillian Armstrong was attracted to this because the part of Lucinda is this feminist woman in a time where to be a woman was very hard, and that's the stress of the narrative for that character. And it's It makes this a nod but understandable companion to the director of my brilliant career, which is also about a woman from around that time who was trying to be a feminist or just not to be a family's, but just trying to live a full life of the woman.

spk_1:   18:52
Yeah, well, especially because she becomes a business owner in the film as well, which I'm sure there weren't a lot of women in Sydney that were owning businesses that she, like, owned outright. I'm still not entirely sure what that Syrian behinds his character like, How does he even play into any of this? Like he was gonna happen. You kind of just shows up. And then, like, he's her confidante. And I was like

spk_0:   19:17
another clergyman, right?

spk_1:   19:19
Yeah, but it's just like, where did he come from? And like, who is he?

spk_0:   19:23
Yeah, I don't know. But he is a friend of hers, and they have good chemistry together as as friends. But guy, And then he disappears. And then he just comes at the end to tidy up the plot. So I think I read online that this part was originally meant for Judy Davis and then they were looking at a lot of name actresses at the time. Kate did the test because at that time she was becoming famous and, you know, straight on Australian stages. And so she did the task on Dhe. They decided to go with her. And there's this quote from Gillian Armstrong that you get to The New York Times, and she said we were looking for someone who wasn't quite conventional. Kate has the slightly magic quality, as if she can be transported into other worlds, and I think that is, that is the essence of this performance. Because this woman is Lucinda is unlike any other person in the movie. Yes, Oscar is also quirky and strange and an oddball. But listen, that is that. But also she is grounded more in reality so she can flying to magic spells and be otherwordly. But she's also a really person, which I never felt that Oscar Waas. Do you agree with that?

spk_1:   20:42
I do, I feel like, but I feel like Kate is given more with the character to make it feel like a real person. But I love about that character. To is like her obsession with glass, because Glass has kind of this like, ephemeral like very quality to it, especially with like the reason she became enamored with glasses because of the Prince Rupert's drop, which just like seems like it King from like fairies or something like that. So she already has, like that built into the character to be like this little, a little mystical, a little magical. But then I feel because Kate is able to make characters like grounded in reality. She does bring that to it. And I feel that Wraith is like, too busy, like trying to be something that he's not like. It was his first movie after English patient, so I think he was just eager to be like I can do other things, too. I'm not just like this romantic lead on. I could be weird and quirky, and I just think that he's like in his head so much that it's like it doesn't It's not the same level.

spk_0:   21:47
You know what? I think you nailed it on the head. I actually don't think that this was his follow up to on English based.

spk_1:   21:53
I looked it up. Yeah,

spk_0:   21:54
and now that you mention it, he's totally doing the untiring frustration. He's like everything that you saw me in last year. Smoldering, you know, obsessed, repressed, sexy. All these things I'm going to be the opposite, so yeah, yeah. You nailed it. Yeah, definitely being untie. Count all. Margie, Shall we play? Yes, you will. My inheritance. I could not believe it were mad to think of it. No. No way. So do we have to talk about his journey, which I found like there is rape and murder and pillaging on dhe. He goes, he takes that he takes the glass church the bat to to transport it. But then he goes with Richard Roxburgh, who plays the villain who then him and his. I guess Army cronies are murdering and raping indigenous Australians. I just thought it was like a weird tendon. And I'm not saying that you don't show that and I'm sure it was in the book. And these things obviously happened in Australia at that time. But it also like I don't know how it fit was the story,

spk_1:   23:04
especially because they don't explore it. Really, Because, like, the whole they're in like a bar and there you like, see through a curtain. You see this aboriginal woman that they're taking turns raping, but you don't like It's like behind this curtain, still like everything's like, Oh, it's great. Yeah, like maybe this is happening. But it doesn't It's not like overt and then, like it's never addressed. Like he. You can tell that he's annoyed by what's happening, but he never liked, confronts them about like how he confronts them by killing him. That's how he confronts. So But I but by accident. So it's not even a dress like, I feel like they're trying to say something about the Aboriginal people, but they're not. It's such a like

spk_0:   23:51
Exc. Indeed, it surfaces. Yeah, they're not really exploring it. It's there. They're not going deep.

spk_1:   23:56
And it's so late in the film to that it doesn't I feel like it's something that they even want to explore. But it's probably was in the novel, so they're like, Oh, let's we have to throw this in.

spk_0:   24:06
And then for a movie that's full Oscar and Lucinda, and then you spend this whole time without Lucinda and we just thought that listen, that is the performance. You know, I am not impartial, okay? We'll always be performance. I'm looking to see more, but I just think when you have a movie called us from Lucinda and it is about these people getting together and finding, but they're both eccentric and finding this love of gambling, which is the same that stands for, I guess, just freedom from societal norms. They find this thing and then you put them together and then 20 minutes later you're just like, No, let's let's divide them and, you know and follow. Yeah, Oscar on this strip

spk_1:   24:46
I thought the same thing this time. Like once they find out that they're in love with each other, they have a very awkward kiss. And then he leaves. And then she, like, reads one letter for, like, this long stretch of time, which is let it go. You always had my trust. And then that's it. Like she has, like, two seconds with it, like 45 minutes of him, like I'm gonna bring this church.

spk_0:   25:09
Yeah, and that's it. Like the kiss. It's such a chase little kiss that there is no fire. There is nothing there. Like if they are, really if we're supposed to believe the end of the movie where she is basically morning, the level for alive and you know Kate does it well, but still like the film doesn't allow this love to blossom. Like I think we need a little bit more of the love story before he's like I get it. He needed to go on that trip and they needed to be separated. But spend more time for them. Get them deeper into the love affair. Doesn't they? Don't have to consummate the love, but they could. They could at least show us what they're feeling for each other.

spk_1:   25:48
Well, I feel like Lucinda is younger than Oscar. Well, Kate obviously was younger than rape when they filmed it, but I feel like she is selling it because it feels like a young love for her, like it's like probably her first love. So that's why it feels like Maur passionate on her end and not so much on his end. Also, when they kiss, he keeps being fidgety and weird that I'm just, like, calm down for a second, like, just like that. Let the moment happen. But he's just like I have quirks. But then, also at the end, when she does, like take over and raises his son, I feel like she realizes maybe that love was always like a friendship, like a kindred smear and as opposed to like the great love of her life. I feel like it shifts.

spk_0:   26:36
Yeah, I really like them acting together. Even though I, you know, like we talked about they didn't go deep enough which which make any surprise, that why how come they never acted together again? The thing is, you know the other

spk_1:   26:49
brother, his brother?

spk_0:   26:50
Yeah, the lesser five. But the thing is, I think it's probably she became too big a star for him because the next year she became she got Elizabeth and became very famous. And, you know, probably at that time, they were of equal stature. And then when you are of equal stature, men don't usually like to act at opposite women of the same stature. They would like to go back to somebody new or somebody younger or somebody who's not as big as that.

spk_1:   27:18
We'll also I feel like English. Patient was like a peak. Rafe. Andi never really like took off from there.

spk_0:   27:26
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, he had some good performances here and there, but it was never sustainable. As, like, he's he's a top star or a top actor.

spk_1:   27:35
Yeah. Yeah, Well, not like a movie star caliber.

spk_0:   27:39
Yes. Well, and while Kate became one. Yes, even if her movies don't always work, she's always been a stuff. The costumes are by one of my favorite cops and designers. I love her work. Janet Patterson and it was the films on Lee Oscar nomination, right? And this was 1997. So the other nominees Where?

spk_1:   28:05
Titanic? Which one? Thomas Todd Kun, Dune and Wings of the Dove.

spk_0:   28:11
Those are all very costume heavy movie

spk_1:   28:14
and very like period piece Thio like There's no fantasy there. It's just like, What? Titanic? Well, I mean, that was gonna win because it was like steamrolling for every category. But Thomas, Todd and Oscar and Lucinda are kind of similar time periods, too. They're both like, um, mid 18 hundreds and Wings of the Dove is also another period piece that's set in the 18 hundreds, which I feel like the costumes And this were not memorable, though, and I feel like a lot of times the costume design nominations are just like because it's a period piece. And yes, then,

spk_0:   28:52
because the work is elaborate, they they have to create everything released ranch on do research, things like that. Yes, I liked Janet Patterson so I think she's a great costume designer. And why, like to your point here they were not memorable. I just felt that they fit the actors and they fit the story on. I like that. They didn't look because sometimes in costume dramas, you look at the costumes and they looked like brand new. Now they look like buddies looked, lived in like they look like these people wore these, closed out.

spk_1:   29:23
And I did love her bloomers before she comes down the stairs and she's like, You were right about the Navy

spk_0:   29:29
blue. And maybe that's why it was nominated for an Oscar because that's that's a scene when it come resumes into the O over the costume top to bottom.

spk_1:   29:39
Yeah. Oh, and then the one scene where he like where Oscar cradles her black and white striped boots for some reason and pretend like they're a baby because you know, business. Yes, but I would have loved to have seen Bookie Nights nominated for costume for that like it's another period piece, technically, but in seventies. Yeah, but it's a little more like the costumes fit like the characters mawr in a way that I feel like costume dramas this way don't necessarily d'oh.

spk_0:   30:10
Yeah, and that was a movie with so many characters and so many costumes on Enterprise. It was ignored. And it was a movie that Oscar's love because they nominated it for other things. This film, like We love Kate and Rape Together We love Kate What she did. I think there is there some memorable quotes in the film, right?

spk_1:   30:29
Yeah, and I think that I mean, I haven't read the book, but I feel like this quote probably came directly from the novel because it just sounds has, like, a wordplay that just like, sounds good together. Um, and Geoffrey Rush does it. It's pretty early on in the film, and he says, in order that I exist Two gamblers, one obsessive, one compulsive must meet.

spk_0:   30:54
Yeah, and so he's telling us here because he's the grandchild of Oscar. And as we find out in the Surrey later, his father was raised by listened after Oscar dies spoiler. So that's and I, you know I love to your point. I love it because when he says one obsessive compulsive and they do play that and they played well and

spk_1:   31:15
which one is obsessive and which one is compulsive. I love the wordplay. I love that line, but I have the whole time. Like as I've been thinking about it, I'm like, But which one is which they equally have, like the same gambling addiction. I feel like I'm trying to figure out which one's the compulsive and which one is the obsessive.

spk_0:   31:37
I think Oscar is compulsive because there is that scene where he's like it's been two weeks and I haven't, you know, picked up a card. And so he's like And when he starts, he can't stop and maybe listen. That is the obsessive, because she is obsessed with glass and loves glass, and

spk_1:   31:54
she does have an obsessive personality. But I feel like it could be either or it could go either way, which is why I'm like, but which is why I also like that line, because it's like, Oh, they're both like they play off of each other, both obsessive compulsive. They have decided that

spk_0:   32:12
one is one and the one is the other. Yeah, and back you go back to that confession scene. I think that's the best part. I just wish there were more of those scenes. The other thing that I really love is the just the characterization of Listen to herself as a headstrong you know, gung ho woman trying to, you know, she's an early prototype of the feminist, and I think that's a reason to wash. This fell because that is there in the text. It's there in the performance, and I think it's there in what Gillian Armstrong live interested. So the other thing that I wanted to talk about, which is like the opposite of what we said of what we like is that I think there's a mash up of tones like The part of it that I really liked is this eccentric, odd oddball comedy

spk_1:   33:01
which I think is very Australian film like They always have a very centric way of, like presenting things with, like, mixed tones.

spk_0:   33:11
Yeah, but then that worked. But then you know the part where you know it becomes kind of a war story that doesn't work, and then when they're trying to tell us like this sweeping, burst death story that's also like, I don't know why, it suddenly an epic story. We have to get their whole life so It's a lot of things put together, and it doesn't entirely work.

spk_1:   33:38
It has such like a weird, quirky sense of humor that, like, just pops up occasionally like, um, his neighbors when they see them gambling and they're like, appalled and they like, walk through the window, Yeah, and then when loosened, that tells them off. And she's like, You are horrible people. You must leave And then they try to leave like out the front door. And she's like, So you came and makes them, like, walk through a window again. It's just, like, so quirky and very like. It's funny, it is funny, but it's like, Okay, this is a little weird.

spk_0:   34:19
It is weird, but and also it doesn't fit anything else. Like, I think that's the point. It doesn't fit anything else. Like sometimes it's due to your point. There is a scene like this, and that, like works as a scene. But it doesn't fit the rest of the story like you know what is happening like OK, why is this here? Why's why is the story taking this turn?

spk_1:   34:38
But I feel like that's a very Australian way of making films like Remind me a lot of like the dressmaker and like how the beginning is so like Corky and weird and then it like ships, since this Tomer becomes very dark, where, like the humor is just like, very like slapsticky, almost. But then, like as it goes, there's like different elements and different tones that they like, throw in something that I wanted to bring up that you were talking about. Kate being cast is Lucinda, and, like how she's a prototype and how she's a feminist, and what I love about it is that they took a chance on, like a Noah. Yeah and Castor in this role, it was race first film after English Patient. It was Julian's first film after little women. I'm sure there was some hype about it had won the Man Booker Prize, so there was obvious,

spk_0:   35:28
Probably have thought after part. Yeah,

spk_1:   35:30
yeah, So the fact that they went with an unknown in this part and took the gamble on her, I think is great because I feel like Hollywood is very limited and their ideas of like who they want to cast in things on. They like go with people who have like proven like box officer like that. People will know by name, and I love that they were able to actually give Kate a chance in this film,

spk_0:   35:54
and probably the reason they were able to is that Armstrong was coming off a little women and Ray finds us coming up the English Patient. Otherwise, they would have just had to say yes to whoever the studio wanted.

spk_1:   36:05
So what names do you think we're being thrown around for this part? And is there any actress from 1997 that she would have wanted to see play Lucinda? I mean,

spk_0:   36:18
I just because of my brilliant career, I saved Judy Davis would have played this part. But Judy Davis is. I don't know how much older than Kate she is and was in the start of the teenager. So probably she was not the right person at that time. Yeah, to play. Is there anybody you think up?

spk_1:   36:35
Some? I kind of picture Julia Roberts in this part because it's such like a Julia Roberts mid nineties like I'm being a dramatic actress like her Mary Reilly. So I like her. She was like trying to do these period pieces to prove that she was not just like the romantic comedy star. So I can totally picture Julia Roberts trying to do this role and them casting Julia Roberts because she's such a big name.

spk_0:   37:03
Yeah, And this is the year of my best friend's wedding. Yes. Yeah. So imagine if Kate, which would never happen, escaped, was not a name. Yeah,

spk_1:   37:11
that would be so good she needs to do. Has she ever done like a traditional romantic comedy like that?

spk_0:   37:18
Shang God, he made Lizzy, which I guess

spk_1:   37:19
no one scene that come on,

spk_0:   37:23
even I haven't seen it isn't even available. I don't think it is because I tried looking for it. It's not. Not in the U. S. Anyone

spk_1:   37:30
guessed Sundays with Kate will never have a complete filmography that

spk_0:   37:34
Yeah, that's one we can do. But, you know, I mean, Kate is coming to the age when Merrill bit product, so maybe she can still do it and get that mainstream comedy going.

spk_1:   37:48
I'd love to see her do it. Yeah, because she does comedy. Well,

spk_0:   37:51
yeah, she does. Yeah. She's just funny. Like when you see her in talk shows. She's very funny.

spk_1:   37:56
Yeah, well, she herself. Yeah, she's very quirky, like even when she does like awards presentations and stuff like Remember when she did the makeup presentation and she was like, That was

spk_0:   38:05
gross? Yes, as one of my favorite moments. Or even when she was presenting best actor to Eddie Redmayne And she goes, Okey dokey, Smoking No reason. So, yeah, so we need that sense of humor in the movies.

spk_1:   38:21
Also, I remember when she did a David Letterman interview. I think it was for Elizabeth also, because this is how obsessed with actresses I waas had VHS tapes and I would record their talk show performances like on Rosie and like David Letterman and like all of these things, and he was that it was for Elizabeth and he was like, You know what? You're winsome and she's like like a pack of smokes And he was like, Those are Winston's. I

spk_0:   38:53
have to find the clip of that. That's very funny. Let's talk about the last part of the movie. So Rafe goes on this trip that we keep mentioning, and then it ends and he gets He wins the bet, basically, and that the church is delivered towards Supposed to be before other things happen. And then there is this very off scene. Was the governess

spk_1:   39:12
Well, there's this horny governess of befell who keeps showing up whenever new men show up. And she's like, I'm gonna get me a man like gets on that horse So that goes to the town and she's like, I need Dick.

spk_0:   39:27
Yes, And she does. And she is literally on screen fishing for rape Stick. Yes,

spk_1:   39:35
on. Then she gets it. Yeah, but it's like she if she raped him, I

spk_0:   39:41
raped him. Yes, it is. Yeah, that's what she did. But also, like I, it's an odd scene again. This movie has a lot of odd scenes, but also, like, I admire this movie in 1997 doing this literal fishing of a dick and rape, which is something that you will not see in any movie, at least an American movie. These days, movies have become so chaste, and this is not like an explicitly sexual seen everybody's clothes. You don't see any flash, but it's still the scene is there, you know? Yeah, it is not a subject, so it is not behind a curtain. It's you know, the camera is on the actors as these things happen

spk_1:   40:19
and she is riding that day at his tics. He has his hands around his face like What's happening right

spk_0:   40:27
now? I don't know. It isn't. It's like this is the tone of this movie, like we're laughing because the scene is kind of funny, but it also is a traumatizing scene because it's, yeah, it's a race. So that's that's kind of this movie. That's the tone of this movie. So anyway, so then this woman gets pregnant and she has a kid, which I guess is Oscars son and the narrator's

spk_1:   40:52
father, Thinkit's. Oh yes, his father. Because Oscar says Grandfather, Yeah,

spk_0:   40:58
And then the movie implies, or it ends with. Basically, even though he won the battle against Lucinda, Syrian Heinz come back to tidy up the plot, make sure that losing that doesn't lose her inheritance. And then and then she raises the child

spk_1:   41:17
will also, I believe the horny governess dies in childbirth, so she didn't know about the bet at all, but then also, if she had, she died anyway, which was, Wilder said, that ends up raising the child,

spk_0:   41:29
and she dies off screen. So we that's one of the other things that it's just like Okay, you just told me this whole story, and then you just have seen Heinz appear in voice over or is it in Arabic? I don't even remember one of them. Tell me that this woman died off screen.

spk_1:   41:44
Yeah, but even that is, like, inferred.

spk_0:   41:47
Yeah, it's never explicit. Yeah, uh, but you like these, This ending when you saw it.

spk_1:   41:54
So not necessarily that aspect of what I loved about the ending was again, like this tragedy. So he after, um, Oscar has been taken advantage of. He feels like he has to honor this woman. He felt like he took advantage of her since it's like his first experience. So he's distraught, and he goes into the glass church and the water that it starts The, uh, the platform that it's on starts to shift and the glass starts breaking and he starts his inside. He's inside. It's still also something we learned from the. The narration at the very beginning of the movie is that he has a fear of water, so it kind of feels like that Check off like If you have a gun in the first act, you have to use it by the end. It kind of feels like it's this another inevitable thing that this fear of water is eventually the thing that destroys him. And he does end up drowning within this glass church that was built for Lucinda, for to show that he cared for her. So I felt like there was, like, this romantic aspect about like that tragedy. I also just love the look of that glass church. It's It's one of the most beautiful scene. It's so gorgeous, like the latticework on. And it's just something so delicate about like this glass stripper that's completely impractical. And I love that scene where her her step, not her stepfather. But the man who kind of raises her is like It's Australia. They're going to burn up. It doesn't work, but like it doesn't matter because it's beautiful. It just like has this like element about it, but then also so he has this tragic ending. But the thing that really affected me when I was younger was, um, the church. They're able to save it like at least the frame of it and it's on the bank. And Lucinda has shown up on the end of the movie because, of course she has. She's found her way there on Dhe. She goes into the church as well. So she's basically standing in the place that Oscar died and the emotions overtake her and she just starts weeping. And I remember being younger and being like over taken by those emotions that she was experiencing at the time.

spk_0:   44:23
And that's why you love the movie At the time.

spk_1:   44:24
I know it was such an emotional teenager gets. We all were right like I have all the feelings on. And then, like the fact that she decides to raise Oscar's child as her own, I think it's also like one of those like heartbreaking things that long only in movies. Yeah, that, like, ties it up like nicely.

spk_0:   44:46
I have to say I haven't seen this movie. This was my first time seeing it. I mean, there is enough interesting and eccentric stuff in there to make it a good and worthwhile what? So it's really an interesting movie? Do you agree?

spk_1:   44:59
I do agree also because I feel like my attention span now, if I don't see a movie in the movie theater, I get very distracted. But for the whole thing. For this, I watched the whole thing. I was engaged the whole time. No. So that's good recommendation if you won't check your phone.

spk_0:   45:18
So now that we've talked about Oscar and listened, I wanna ask you, Andy, about some questions about Cate Blanchett and about actresses in general. So you obviously are into movies, and you are very dedicated to actresses because you saw Elizabeth and went back and watched these two other movies. So what was your first love? You know, your first actress, love, Let's a

spk_1:   45:42
So I think the first time that it happened was just a couple years before with Kate Winslet and Sense and Sensibility. So I like, fell in love with her and that performance. And so then I went back to like, see what performance she had done before, which was only two. She had done Heavenly Creatures and everyone's favorite, a kid and King Arthur's

spk_0:   46:05
court her. This really what it's Ah, it's a Disney movie. So this kid goes

spk_1:   46:13
back in time. He's a baseball player. In the nineties, he goes back the King Arthur's court and Kate Winslet plays one ofher. No, not even that. Okay, so Arthur's like old in this version, and he has two daughters. One is the love interest for the young boy, and the other is Kate, who's like, I don't know, like 17. And she is disguising herself as this night that, like steals from the rich to give to the poor. But everyone thinks it's a man because it's a night. But so she's like this, like, mystical character. And I believe that, uh, who's someone else's place? Her love interest that's really famous. It's Daniel Craig, isn't it? Yes. Okay. Ask Daniel Craig. Elizabeth. Let's see. Yes, remember him until

spk_0:   47:04
it was the pope's assassin. I was always in cloak, so you can't really see

spk_1:   47:08
it, but yes. Oh, those were her two movies that I had to go back and see. And I remember I was like, 15 I guess. And, um, I have rented heavenly creatures.

spk_0:   47:20
And so So Kate Winslet is your number one? Is she still your number one?

spk_1:   47:25
So, yes and no. She always has that special place to me, but I really want her two be better now you know what I mean? Like she has it. Women's look. She hasn't made him film since Wonder Wheel, which was like two years ago

spk_0:   47:44
with that after See Job? Yeah. Oh,

spk_1:   47:47
it was her last film. I thought she was good in that movie. The movie itself is crazy and like a lot of her motivations don't make any sense. But she's still trying to sell it. But I can see like the good performance that, like can emerge from what the film is she When she was younger, she had this emotion that was just like she went out there. She was so wrong. She just like like, lit up the screen, I felt. And now she gets older. I feel like she is very studied, like people always talk about. If you see Kate Winslet's scripts, like on the Margins there just filled with notes and just like so much research, which is good. But then at the same time, now you see like the wheels turning in her performances. You don't see her like just letting loose and like being a character, you see her very mannered like this is the part where I'm gonna purse my lips. And this is the part where because it's written and the notes of her scripts, apparently,

spk_0:   48:46
I mean, yes, I agree that in those early performances, at first she was somebody who was just jumping off So unafraid,

spk_1:   48:55
Yes, So really like heavenly creatures. She is so good in that. And she is like, Well, she said it was her first time in a film, so she had nothing to lose. So she just, like, gave it all. And I missed that. Kate, I wish that 43 year old Kate Winslet now could still give a performance like that. But I think that she's too a little bit too mannered now.

spk_0:   49:17
Yeah, I agree with right. Is there a performance in Kate's tomography that you think only you like? I remember.

spk_1:   49:27
So the episode that you had with men. Well, where you were talking about bandits. Yeah, he was like no one remembers bandits. And she got it. But she got a Golden Globe nomination. I remember at the time, because I was already, like, in my Kate obsession, that I did really love her in that movie. Especially like because she was so quirky and fun and like shoot, I was like, Oh, she could be so funny Look at her, like with singing like Total Eclipse of the Heart. Yeah, but I think that the performance that no one ever discuss is that I think she's brilliant in is the good German. I love that, too. She's so good in it. And I remember at the time when it came out, George Clooney was like, Just you wait until you see her in this. She's gonna get another Oscar nomination for it. It didn't happen, but she's She's the best part of that movie by far. Tobey Maguire's really miscast, but she's like doing this. Marlena Dietrich, like deep voice like with her German accent on like her introduction is just like her finding her light. And it's very it's just like like a movie star performance. But because she she's doing like accents and different things still has, like new wants and enough in it that makes it like a really engaging Cate Blanchett performance. And she

spk_0:   50:45
looks so good in Black juvenile. Yeah, I think it's the most beautiful she's ever looked on screen in the German Yes, but I like that,

spk_1:   50:53
but I don't think anyone talks aboutthe.

spk_0:   50:55
Maybe you and I right now the next. So you know she's acted was a lot of men with a lot of women, Ray for Dane, Judy and Rooney and lots of people who is your favorite Kate scene partner.

spk_1:   51:14
So I know everyone. I'm gonna go against the grain because I know everyone says that they love her with Rooney. But for me, that performance doesn't do anything for me. Carol, you're no Carol. Like I know everyone is now going to be like sending me hate mail, but I've seen it three times and every single time. I'm just like it's behind glass. I can't penetrate it like

spk_0:   51:41
you don't like the Phil.

spk_1:   51:43
Yeah, I don't like the film. So everyone keeps saying that Rooney Mars their favorite partner, But I don't She's not mine. My favorite Cate Blanchett scene partner is Cate Blanchett. Ships and coffee and cigarettes. She's so good, like playing off of each other like herself because she knows she already knows what the other character is. But they're so different, and she liked plays off of herself so well. I really do love that

spk_0:   52:14
funny performance to get she's playing. Ah, heightened version of herself. Yes, playing itself was this flighting movie star. Yeah, and then she plays her resentful cousin

spk_1:   52:23
that's like really dirty and like, very like country for as much like Australia. I don't know, like, if there's like hillbillies in Australia but like that's what she's playing. She's like this, like rough character and then, like the rial, Okay, Blanche, like movie star characters so like pristine and like you thio

spk_0:   52:45
e. I like that as though it's a great answer. Who would you like to see her work with? And this could be a director, a custom designer, an actor who, ever

spk_1:   52:54
I would love to see her work with another female director. I don't have anyone in mind, but I do really want to see her play with Kate Winslet. I know a couple of people have also said that, but I don't feel like she gets cast in roles where she plays against females a lot like she had Carol with Rooney, and she has Judy and notes on a scandal. But for the

spk_0:   53:17
money didn't like Ocean's eight.

spk_1:   53:20
No, did anyone. I liked Anne in it, she seemed to be having fun, but I completely forgot that keep Blanchard was in that she's so butch in it, too. I do really want to see her with Kate Winslet just because they're my two favorite actresses, two of my favorite actresses working with each other, but

spk_0:   53:39
they became famous, and at the same time,

spk_1:   53:41
I know. And there's so many things that, like are similar with them. They both have the exact same number of Oscar nominations and with the exact same number in each category, even supported. Yes, like both of them are named Kate like there you go. But I don't know in what aspect I would want them to be in a film together, but something that maybe like a Thelma and Louise type thing, or like even in like a romantic comedy where there is not

spk_0:   54:13
an erotic thriller, definitely an erotic thriller. So screenwriters, if you're listening to this podcast, write an erotic thriller for Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet,

spk_1:   54:23
we can have Jane Campion direct.

spk_0:   54:25
Yes, great choice. So what is there something that people think of of Blanchet that you kind of don't agree with? Like her perception in the culture

spk_1:   54:38
K is one of those people who does have, like who she is as an actress. I think it's who people perceive her as there's so there's like red carpet Kate, where she just like, glamorously dressed and can apparently even make a dress that looks like a caftan look like it's couture. And she hasn't really tapped into like who she is, like on talk shows like within that persona. But I feel that she also

spk_0:   55:11
which is why she should make a comedy, you know.

spk_1:   55:13
But I feel like there's part of her that, like Marrow, wants to keep private things private like you don't she doesn't really talk about her family. I feel that she has that thing with Meryl where if there if you know too much about them, you can't buy them in certain roles. More like you can't disappear into this character that they're playing, and I feel like she has that like movie star quality. But she's also an actress s so that she knows that this is a craft as well, and she wants to keep aspects of that so that there's still a mystery.

spk_0:   55:49
And she's not Jennifer Aniston

spk_1:   55:50
exact won't Jennifer Aniston only played enough.

spk_0:   55:54
Yeah, but there is a middle ground, you know, maybe bridging those two personas together in Not in her right. Not showing us more of her private life, but in a role in movies.

spk_1:   56:08
Yeah, but I do think that she's, um, on actress that people admire that people. Wouldn't you say, Kate Blanche, it I don't I don't think there's anyone I'm sure there is. Someone's gonna be like, No, I hate her. But I think that when you say keep Lynch what people are like, Oh, I love Cate Blanchett.

spk_0:   56:26
Yeah. Yes, She is an admirable person. Yeah. And so our friend Jose Seles, who was on the podcast for the Ripley podcast, has said to me on Twitter that he will start a drinking game and have a shot every time I call her impeccable. Apparently, I go her impeccable a lot in this podcast, but she is. So if you're listening and you think Kate is impeccable tweet at me at Sunday's escape, telling me that she's Becca Bubble and do your shot to be your shot. Stoli. Martine. So thank you so much. Andy. This It was great having you This was a great conversation. And before we go, why don't you let people where they can find you on social media?

spk_1:   57:17
So I guess the biggest social media platform them that I'm on is instagram. And my instagram handle is a beast to 81. The play on my name Andrew Boyd. Stuart

spk_0:   57:29
So And Andy is great on Instagram. So give him a follow on and you can find me on Twitter at m e Underscore says and find podcast Sundays escaped. And until next time, thank you for listening.