Andrew Upton: Last News

Cate Blanchett looked confident as she stepped out in New York Sunday. The actress, 53, smiled as she walked tall in a dark denim suit with gold stitching and a white button down top. The two-time Oscar winner wore her blonde hair in a bob parted on the side and she wore natural looking makeup with a neutral pink lip.  Confident: Cate Blanchett looked confident as she stepped out in New York Sunday.

Cate Blanchett, center, Stacy L. Smith, left, and Coco Francini, have taken action against the long-standing lack of representation in the film and television industry. Proof of Concept will provide funding and mentorship to filmmakers whose stories promote the perspectives of women, trans, and nonbinary people. Photo: John Phillips/Getty Images for Stacy Smith, USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative

For Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari, her debut feature Shayda has served as an authentic and honest exploration into her own personal childhood trauma. The film, which is being released by Sony Pictures Classics and won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition Audience Award in Sundance earlier this year, is Australia’s Oscar submission for the Best International Feature Oscar.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Fingernails, the Apple Original Films sci-fi love story of sorts that marks the English-language debut of Greek writer-director Christos Nikou. It came off the success of his debut pic Apples, which was Greece’s submission to last year’s Oscar race.

EXCLUSIVE: Golden Globe winner Emma Corrin (The Crown) and Cesar nominee Lucie Zhang (Paris, 13th District) are set to star in Jenny Suen’s English language feature debut Peaches, which Coco Francini (Fingernails) will produce and Oscar winner Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton will executive-produce for Dirty Films.

Cate Blanchett’s home in Cornwall has made lives for her neighbours a “misery”, according to reports.The actor bought a cottage in the village of Mawgan Porth with her husband Andrew Upton for £1.6million in 2020, before demolishing it to build a modern five-bedroom home.Nearby residents however have said they are being disturbed by the noisy building work, along with huge lorries which deliver supplies to the house on narrow lanes.Speaking to The Sun, one neighbour said: “When you open a window you hear drilling. It makes our lives a misery.”“All summer we’ve had lorries delivering materials to the building site and driving up and down this narrow lane while there are excited children running to and from the beach – it’s a recipe for disaster,” another resident told The Times.“Every time you open the window you can hear drilling or huge equipment moving around, it’s making our lives a constant misery.”Marzouk Al-Bader, director of Watershedd, the architect responsible for the construction of the property, said they have been “in regular communication” with the neighbours to ensure they are aware of the work taking place.“Andrew Upton and Cate Blanchett have received planning consent for a sustainable replacement home in Mawgan Porth,” Al-Bader said.

Sometimes when you have a terrific film but it doesn’t quite have the hook for mainstream audiences, you sometimes need a catchy ace in the hole. And that’s exactly what the Australian film “Shayda” has in its executive producers, in this case, a little actor you may know named Cate Blanchett, plus her husband and producing partner Andrew Upton and Coco Francini.

Caroline Brew editor Jessie Buckley, Jeremy Allen White and Riz Ahmed find themselves caught in a love triangle in the new Apple film “Fingernails,” which debuted its first trailer Tuesday morning. Directed by Christos Nikou and produced by Cate Blanchett, the sci-fi film is set in a not-so-distant future. The story follows Anna (Buckley) and Ryan (White) who use a mathematical, machine-determined proceudre to determine if they are truly in love.

Naman Ramachandran Signature Entertainment has acquired U.K. and Ireland rights to writer-director Warwick Thornton’s Australian drama “The New Boy” from The Veterans. The film follows a nine-year-old Aboriginal orphan boy who arrives in the dead of night at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun, disturbing the delicately balanced world.

Christopher Vourlias It’s not every director who gets to turn Cate Blanchett down. Rarer still for a first-time filmmaker from Europe whose arty, offbeat debut — a poetic, surreal, soulful meditation on memory and grief — might have easily escaped the attention of Hollywood royalty. But “Apples,” by Greek director Christos Nikou, charmed audiences after its 2020 premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where Blanchett presided over the main competition jury.

The 76th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will close with a screening of the Sundance Competiton pic Shayda attended by the film’s star Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Holy Spider) and Exec Producer Cate Blanchett.

Elizabeth Wagmeister Senior Correspondent Cate Blanchett debuted her latest acting role in “The New Boy” at the Cannes Film Festival this week, but the Oscar-winner wouldn’t mind staying behind the camera a bit more. “I’m always trying to get out of acting,” Blanchett said. “I’ve been trying to stop acting my entire professional life.” Speaking at her Kering Women in Motion talk at Cannes, in conversation with her producing partner, Coco Francini, Blanchett said that her recent producing work behind the camera “feels an extension, for me, of my work as an actor.” “I remember an Australian film director saying to me really early on in my career that I had to stop taking small roles,” Blanchett recalled. “And I said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘That was the most interesting role.’ I didn’t want to play the lead. I want that one.”

Cate Blanchett is keeping busy while attending the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Alissa Simon Film Critic Australian helmer-screenwriter-cinematographer Warwick Thornton won Cannes’ Camera d’Or with “Samson and Delilah” in 2009. Now he’s back with his third feature, “The New Boy,” competing in Un Certain Regard. The film turns on the story of an Aboriginal child, who arrives at a remote monastery run by a renegade nun. The new boy’s presence disturbs a delicately balanced world in this story of spiritual struggle and the cost of survival. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Deborah Mailman and Wayne Blair, and is produced by Kath Shelper, Andrew Upton, Blanchett and Lorenzo de Maio. Veterans is selling in Cannes.  How did the Cannes Golden Camera influence your career?

Cate Blanchett has won over critics and audiences across the world thanks to her breathtaking, wide-ranging performances in films such as Carol, Nightmare Alley and The Lord of the Rings franchise.But while the acclaimed, hard-working Australian star, 53, is often on our silver screens, she tends to keep her personal life more private.The two-time Oscar-winning actress, who has been nominated for another Best Actress Oscar this year for her role as an embattled composer in Tár, has been married to her husband for over 25 years. Cate and her husband in 2017Now, ahead of her arrival at 2023's awards ceremony, HELLO! explores everything there is to know about their family life.The multi-award winning fashionable actress and star of both huge franchise films and independent classics is married to Australian playwright, screenwriter and director Andrew Upton.

Oscars. However, the actress firmly has family on her mind after a "painful" time away from them. The 53-year-old recently spent months living apart from her loved ones while making psychological drama Tár.

She’s tipped to become the fifth actress in history to win three or more Oscars at tonight’s ceremony, but for Cate Blanchett, her Hollywood career has come at a cost. The star recently laid bare the huge sacrifices she made for her most powerful – and controversial – role to date in psychological drama Tár. She had to live apart from her husband, Andrew Upton, 57, and their “extraordinary children” while she filmed in Asia and Berlin for more than two months.

A few weeks after Zar Amir-Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award in Cannes for her performance as journalist Arezoo Rahimi in crime thriller Holy Spider, the Iranian-French actor flew to Melbourne, Australia, to take part in what was set to be another urgent story from an Iranian filmmaker: Noora Niasari’s debut feature Shayda. 

EXCLUSIVE: Luke Wilson and Annie Murphy are set to join Apple Original Films’ Fingernails. The film currently stars, Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White with Christos Nikou directing. Apple Original Films landed the film at Cannes this year. Cate Blanchett, Coco Francini and Andrew Upton, who were also Executive Producers of Apples, will produce Nikou’s latest alongside FilmNation Entertainment. Jerome Duboz will serve as executive producer. 

EXCLUSIVE: Iain Reid and Jason Schwartzman are adapting Apples — a 2020 Greek film of the same name from Christos Nikou — for the small screen.

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar will not be making his first English-language feature directorial debut with A Manual for Cleaning Women, which has Cate Blanchett set to star and produce under her Dirty Films, Deadline has learned.