In the now infamous words of Ariana DeBose, “Blanchett, Cate, you’re a genius.”
The Aussie actress has shared her genius with pop and rock band Sparks, featuring in their latest music video for their song, The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte.
In the music video, Blanchett, 53, is placed front and centre, garnering all the attention in a canary yellow suit, and showing off some funky dance moves during the entirety of the three minute song.
Watch the video above.
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In the background, brothers Ron and Russel Mael, the members of the duo, who are both in their 70s, act nonchalant in the background in their all-black outfits. Ron, the older of the two at 77, spends almost the entirety of the video sitting at a table nursing a coffee cup, only getting up to bring back a roll of paper towel to wipe the table down with.
Russell, 74, engages more with the actress, coming off his stool occasionally to sing behind her, but never taking attention away from the main attraction. The music video ends with Blanchett flanked by both men who have stood up from their designated spots.
Blanchett’s role in the music video was reportedly not meant to be so prominent, she said in an interview for the Awards Circuit podcast earlier this week.
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She recalled meeting the duo at the César Awards in France and stayed in touch, after which she got a call from Russell asking her to record herself on her phone “mugging around” the their latest single.
She shares she did so at 3am one “crazy night”, but then shared she was going to be in Los Angeles soon, making the brothers invite her to shoot together.
The music video was shot only two weeks ago, with Blanchett saying, “It was really quick. It was so much fun.”
Russell recalled the first time Blanchett heard the song to Variety: “She said, ‘I’m laughing and I’m crying at the same time,’ and I thought that was a really apt comment about this song.”
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And so when Blanchett had invited herself into the music video “we didn’t even know she was gonna necessarily be dancing. It was more like ‘Come and stand in our video’ – you know, that would’ve been fine too. But that was what she felt like doing to that song,” Russell said.
“She came in with the red headphones she’s wearing in the video, and… she seemed like she’d actually been on a stage before or something.”
His brother Ron added, ”She adopted a character really in the video. The way that she organised what she did to be kind of still in the verses and then hyper in the choruses was so perfect for the song.”
The brothers say there were “no notes” on Blanchett’s dancing while filming the video.
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“I mean, we would like to take credit for having directed her, but we had nothing to do with that. It’s a little bit presumptuous to be directing Cate Blanchett. We were extras in our own video, in a certain way.”
An Instagram post from designer brand Stella McCartney shares that this is not the first time Blanchett has worn the iconic yellow suit, featuring a personal note from McCartney herself.
“Cate, you blow my brains! Coolest bird alive… and Sparks! This is a career highlight. x Stella” read the first line, a direct message from the designer to the actress.
The rest of the post reads: “Living legend Cate Blanchett (re)wears our Summer 2018 canary yellow Savile Row tailoring in the Sparks music video for The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte.
“Cate originally wore her Stella suit to a press conference for ‘Oceans 8’ in 2018, showing how timeless fashion is true sustainability. Wear more, waste less.”
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