Cate Blanchett Hints At Lesbian Experiences While Promoting ‘Carol’

Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett has apparently spoken about her ”many” past relationships with women while promoting her new film, Carol, a lesbian love story co-starring Rooney Mara.

In a recent interview with an international leading publication, Blanchett was asked if playing the title role in the Todd Haynes-directed period drama was her first turn as a lesbian.

Allegedly, she smiled and coyly questioned whether the question was for reel life or real life. On further prodding, the actress apparently confirmed that she did have past relationships with women.

Based on Patricia Highsmith’s romance novel, The Price of Salt, Carol is set in a 1950s New York department store where an older married woman (Blanchett) falls in love with a younger shop-girl (Mara). It’s about a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life. She then falls for an older, married woman. The tale is set in 1950s New York City. Carol also stars Kyle Chandler as Harge Aird and Sarah Paulson as Abby Gerhard. The director is Todd Haynes.

It is not the first time Blanchett has starred in a Highsmith adaptation – she was part of the ensemble cast for Anthony Minghella‘s 1999 thriller, The Talented Mr Ripley.

Cate has also supposed to have articulated that there were a lot of people like her character in the film who don’t feel the need to shout things from the rafters.

Blanchett is married to Andrew Upton and is the mother of three sons and a daughter, Edith, whom the couple adopted earlier this year. Upton is currently artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company, where a play about Highsmith, Joanna Murray-Smith’s Switzerland, premiered recently to great acclaim before opening at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, starring Laura Linney.

Carol was filmed in a Cincinnati outfitted to look like 1950s New York, and the shooting wrapped up in only 35 days in April 2014.

The film is expected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2015.