Cate Blanchett responds to public backlash over ‘middle class’ comments

Australian actor made the remarks in May at the Cannes Film Festival

Cate Blanchett has responded to the backlash over her “white, privileged and middle class” comments made earlier this year.

In May, the Australian actor attracted criticism on social media when she described herself as “middle class” in the context of her work with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.

Many people took issue with the fact that Blanchett, one of the world’s highest-paid actors, would see herself as “middle class”.

In a new interview with The Telegraph, Blanchett, 55, was asked about the uproar her remarks caused.

“Oh, did they?” Blanchett answered in response, which the interviewer noted was said “with a disdainful moue”.

The director Guy Maddin, with whom Blanchett was completing the interview in promotion of their forthcoming film Rumours, stepped in to defend the actor.

“You were using the standard British definition of middle class,” Maddin said. “You’re above the poverty line and below plutocrat.”

Blanchett continued: “And maybe middle class is about outlook.” She added: “But, anyway, I’m sorry if I offended anyone.”

Britain LFF Rumours (Invision)

The Lord of the Rings star made the comments during a Cannes film festival press conference, in the context of her advocacy for refugee causes.

“I’m white, I’m privileged, I’m middle class, and I think, you know, one can be accused of having a bit of a white saviour complex,” she said.

“But to be perfectly honest, my interaction with the refugees in the field and also in resettled environments has totally changed my perspective on the world.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Blanchett denied suggestions that her character in Rumours – German chancellor, Hilda Ortmann – is based on Angela Merkel.

She explained that people were likely to arrive at that conclusion because “there are so few examples of female leaders, and here you are as chancellor of Germany”.

The filmmakers, she added, “were very studious to avoid any parallels with real leaders, past or present”.

Rumours is a horror-comedy, in which she plays one of seven major leaders of state who get lost in the woods following a G7 Summit meeting.

Also in the film are Alicia Vikander, Charles Dance, Roy Dupis, Denis Ménochet, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rolando Ravello, Takehiro Hira, and Zlatko Burić.

Cate Blanchett arrives on the red carpet for the premiere of "Rumours'' at the Princess of Wales Theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival (AP)

“These so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods as night falls and they realise they are suddenly alone,” reads the film’s synopsis.

The project has been described as a “darkly absurd exploration of power and institutional failure in a slowly burning world".

Already released in the US, Rumours is slated for a theatrical release in the UK and Ireland on 6 December.