Cate Blanchett has spoken about the “distinct lack of shame” in modern society during a discussion about her new Apple TV+ series, Disclaimer.
Blanchett’s character, Catherine Ravenscroft, faces a public shaming in the seven-episode psychological thriller. Asked at the Venice film festival if the way society shames women has changed in recent years, and how she approached this role as a woman, the Australian actor and film-maker said: “I always approach every role as a woman, because I am one. I don’t really think about that.
“There’s a distinct lack of shame in society at the moment. Shame is very different to guilt. Guilt is a very useless emotion, I don’t know what you do with that. But shame and regret, and the lessons one can learn from that, are very powerful.”
Blanchett added, however, that there was a lot of “shaming” in society.
“Just look at the way you attempt to parent children. If you publicly shame them, it can lead to rage. Private conversations are often far more powerful than public ones. I’m not saying public ones are not important, but one-to-one, face-to-face reconciliation type conversations are far more powerful than public shaming.”
The psychological thriller, which premieres on the Lido on Thursday, is five-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón’s big budget streaming series debut. Based on the bestselling novel by Renée Knight, it tells the story of an acclaimed journalist who discovers she is the protagonist in a novel that threatens to reveal her darkest secret.
As Catherine races to uncover the anonymous writer’s identity, she is forced to confront her past before it destroys her life and relationships with her husband (Sacha Baron Cohen) and their son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The show also stars Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville and Indira Varma as its narrator.
“We all have dark sides,” Blanchett said. “I think there’s a belief system going around that if people don’t tell you everything they have a sinister side to hide. That’s called privacy.
“We think if people aren’t honest they’re doing nefarious things, but perhaps we’re in the process of dealing with them ourselves. I play a woman that has things she has buried, traumatic things.”
The actor referenced the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which is about the effects of psychological trauma. “The way trauma can remain in the body on a cellular level, and what happens to repressed memories. I found that fascinating and quite painful, and I was very grateful that I wasn’t in the same space.”
Asked whether her outfit for the series premiere would be noteworthy after she walked the Cannes red carpet in a dress reminiscent of the Palestinian flag, Blanchett joked: “I’m going naked.”
Meanwhile Cuarón, whose past film credits include Children of Men and Roma, addressed his foray into television. “I don’t know how to direct TV, probably at this stage of my life it’s too late to learn. We approached this whole thing as a film.”
He admitted that this might have been a “miscalculation” on his part. “To shoot a film takes longer, and these were like seven films. It was a really long process, I really felt for the actors,” he said.