Cate Blanchett's accents are so masterful that she sometimes forgets the sound of her real voice

Cate Blanchett is an acting chameleon who can transform into whatever role she plays, whether that's Queen Elizabeth I, Katharine Hepburn or Bob Dylan.

If you've seen anything that Blanchett is in (she has more than 100 credits to her name), you might be a bit like Q's Tom Power, who told her he was particularly impressed with her ability to take on different accents.

"I didn't know what you sounded like as yourself," he said when the Australian actor dropped by the Q studio during the Toronto International Film Festival last month. "I've watched a lot of things that you've been in, and your voice and your presence and your, I guess, embodiment is so different in every single one."

Apparently, one of the flip sides of being a truly remarkable actor is that you might lose yourself in your characters along the way. Blanchett responded that it's easy for her to forget what her own voice sounds like sometimes.

"I had a friend come around, an Australian friend, and she said, 'Oh, you sound really English,'" Blanchett recalled. "I said, 'No, I don't [in an Australian accent]!' And she said, 'No, you sound really English.' Then sometimes when I'm in America, my children die deaths of a thousand cuts when I'm speaking to American friends because I start to take on a slightly [American accent], and I hate it about myself."

Maybe I know what my creative voice is, but I don't know what my literal voice sounds like.- Cate Blanchett

The Oscar winner described a dream she had in which someone asked her if she would please just speak in her own voice, to which she replied that she'd try, but she couldn't quite remember what that was anymore.

"When I went and started out in the industry, there wasn't a lot of call for actors working internationally to speak with an Australian accent," she explained. "[In drama school] you're encouraged to develop your voice [and] your physicality as being a flexible, malleable thing. So I've always treated it as that…. Maybe I know what my creative voice is, but I don't know what my literal voice sounds like."

Rumours and Disclaimer

In her conversation with Power, Blanchett also talked about two of her most recent projects, the unique political satire film Rumours and the psychological thriller series Disclaimer.

In Rumours, directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, Blanchett plays the fictional German chancellor Hilda Ortmann, who's hosting the G7 summit to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. The film unpacks governmental incompetence, as the seven world leaders end up getting lost in the woods, where they face surreal obstacles like undead bog people and a giant brain.

"[The directors] furnished us with this really awkward, strange footage from various G7 summits," Blanchett said. "You see what the G7 actually do when they go to various countries and engage in outward-facing cultural activities, and it is farcical and ridiculous…. The footage of the G7 made me laugh so hard and feel so deeply uncomfortable, and I realized that tonally, both of those atmospheres needed to take place in the film."

In Alfonso Cuarón's seven-part limited series Disclaimer, based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Renée Knight, Blanchett plays a celebrated documentarian who's horrified to discover that she's the main character in a mysterious novel that exposes her darkest secrets.

"There's an inciting incident in my character's backstory," Blanchett said. "All of these things that we as human beings are trying to repress will always come back and haunt us. And it comes back to haunt my character like a mack truck hitting her in the face."

Disclaimer is out now on Apple TV+ while Rumours hits theatres on Oct. 18.

The full interview with Cate Blanchett is available on our YouTube channel and on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. She talks more about Rumours, Disclaimer and how she chooses her roles. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Cate Blanchett produced by Lise Hosein.