Cate Blanchett

A luminous Aussie actress able to embody markedly disparate characters, Blanchett made her mark in her homeland as a formidable leading lady on stage at the Sydney Theatre Company. In 1998, with only a handful of films on her resume, she captivated art-house aficionados as the title character in Elizabeth. Portraying the Virgin Queen's tumultuous ascendancy to the throne, Blanchett was a revelation, capturing the monarch's passion and intelligence, and deservedly earning her first Oscar nod. Wisely shedding her costume-drama image, Blanchett quickly proved she was equally believable as quirky, contemporary-era gals, such as the nasal-voiced spouse of an air-traffic controller (Pushing Tin), a kidnap victim involved in a three-way romance with her captors (Bandits), a troubled Southern psychic (The Gift) and a junkie trying to go straight (Little Fish). Already known for her regal bearing, Blanchett lent her considerable poise to the small but memorably imposing part of Elfin royal Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Then in 2004 she took home an Oscar for channeling Hollywood royalty when she brilliantly played late Academy Award-winning actress Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. Strangely, despite all of her success and beauty, Blanchett is still primarily viewed as a supporting player, albeit a prolific one. In 2006 alone she appeared in three radically different films: In the critically lauded, multiple-narrative Babel, she played an unhappy American wife who is shot when on holiday, while she was a fierce femme fatale in the neonoir The Good German. But it was her turn in Notes on a Scandal as a married schoolteacher involved with a teen student that earned Blanchett her seemingly annual award citations, including Golden Globe, SAG and Oscar nods.