Aussie filmmaker Warwick Thornton joked that Cate Blanchett “elbowed” her way into his crafty sixth feature, The New Boy, as he introduced the pic at Deadline’s Cannes Studio shortly before its festival premiere.
In the pic, which debuted this week at Cannes, Blanchett plays Sister Eileen, a mysterious nun who runs an orphanage for lost boys; however, the role was originally written as a priest, to be played by a male actor, until the two-time Oscar winner came along. “The character of sister Eileen wasn’t in the script at that time, but Cate coming along actually made it beautiful,” Thornton said.
Blanchett told Deadline that she initially reached out to Thornton during the pandemic and the pair began a virtual workshop to discuss opportunities they could create to work together. “Like a lot of people during the pandemic, I thought well look, who do I really want to be a dialogue with?” she said. “So we just started to Zoom.
And then it evolved from there.” Blanchett and Thornton were joined in the Deadline studio by co-stars Wayne Blair and Deborah Mailman.
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