12-06-01 Latest News

Congrats Cate!
Xoanon @ 7:15 pm EST

Cate Blanchett Plays Mommy

Cate Blanchett got a special delivery this week--and we're not talking about that National Board of Review (news - web sites) Award she just received.


The 32-year-old Australian-born actress has given birth to her first child in London, her publicist, Lisa Kasteler, announced Thursday.

The only thing we know about the infant is his name: Dashiell John. Kasteler didn't reveal any other detalils--including his birthdate, weight or length--except to say that the baby, Blanchett and hubby Andrew Upton are all doing fine.

The baby isn't the only thing the busy Blanchett has pumped out this year: She's one of Hollywood's hardest-working actresses, completing a half-dozen projects in the past year.

On Wednesday, she got a jumpstart in the Oscar race by being cited by the National Board of Review as the year's Best Supporting Actress for her work in three of her 2001 films: The Man Who Cried and the upcoming The Lord of the Rings (due December 19) and The Shipping News (which opens Christmas Day).

She's also generating some Oscar buzz for her starring role in the Warner Bros. World War II espionage drama Charlotte Gray, which hits theaters in limited release on December 28. Her other recent flicks include the heist caper Bandits with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Tykwer's Heaven, which will premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February.

In fact, Blanchett says her jammed schedule is precisely the reason she wound up preggers in the first place. "It's a happy byproduct of a happy marriage. We had a lot of very romantic reunions," she said after announcing her pregnancy. "I guess it was those romantic liaisons in hotel rooms that got me where I am today."

The two will get a chance for another reunion soon enough--Blanchett's already booked to begin work in February on the Joel Schumacher-helmed biopic Chasing the Dragon: The Veronica Guerin Story, in which she stars as a crusading Irish journalist.

Blanchett shot to prominence with 1998's Elizabeth--a role that earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination--and followed that up with such films as The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Gift, Pushing Tin, Oscar and Lucinda and An Ideal Husband.

She's been married to her ideal husband Upton, a fellow Aussie, in 1997. He got his start editing indie films Down Under and is currently writing an adaptation of Foucault's Pendulum for Fine Line Pictures.