Cate Blanchett in a scene
from Woody Allen's film Blue Jasmine. Hopscotch Entertainment Source: Supplied
Vicky Roach, The Daily Telegraph, reports
Cate Blanchett is to film the JFK conspiracy thriller Blackbird in Sydney early next year.
It will be the first feature the Oscar-winning actress has shot in Australia since Cabramatta crime drama Little Fish, with Sam Neill and Hugo Weaving, in 2005.
The harbour city will double as Los Angeles in the film, written and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet, about a woman who discovers some dark family secrets when she attends the funeral of her grandfather, a Hollywood visual effects artist who moonlighted for US special ops agencies.
"We've been talking for a couple of years about doing this, so I'm thrilled it's actually happening,'' said Blanchett on the eve of the Australian premiere of Woody Allen's latest film, Blue Jasmine, for which she is being widely tipped for an Oscar nomination.
Blackbird will be filmed in Sydney so Blanchett can be near her family - the 44-year-old actor has three sons with husband Andrew Upton - although some exteriors might be shot in LA.
"(David Mamet) wouldn't be coming here if the crews weren't magnificent,'' Blanchett said.
Her first major stage role was opposite Geoffrey Rush in the acclaimed 1992 Sydney Theatre production of Mamet's Oleanna, for which she won a critics award for best newcomer.
During her time as co-artistic director of the STC, Blanchett and Upton attracted some of America's leading talent to Australia, including director Steven Soderbergh and Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Blanchett, who deemed Kevin Rudd's 2008 ideas summit so important she attended just days after giving birth to youngest son Ignatius, said she was disappointed climate change wasn't higher on the current election agenda.
"The nature of the 24-hour media cycle means that what we are getting at the moment, what we are being fed, is the gaffes and the slip-ups and the missteps,'' she said.
"And I am not particularly interested in feeding the white noise of that cycle with my own personal views.
"I think what the voting public is interested in, and I am part of that, is access to the policy details and the issues in order to make an informed decision.
"I certainly wish that climate change was on the election agenda because I know there are individuals on both parties that know what a pressing issue climate change is but the problem is it requires great leadership."
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