Cate Blanchett, a two-time Oscar winner, lost her composure with a reporter for an Australian TV program, becoming so stunned by the absurdity of his question to her that she descended into profanity. Reportedly, the final, bizarre question came at the end of a stream of inane questions from Australian Channel Ten entertainment reporter Jonathan Hyla.
Blanchett submitted to the interview as part of her promotional duties for the hit Disney live-action movie version of Cinderella , in which Blanchett gives a scenery-chewing turn as the title character’s evil stepmother.
There is some dispute over whether the “F-bomb” that the six-time Academy Award nominee dropped into the interview was merely part of good-natured banter between Blanchett and Hyla, or whether Blanchett had just been pushed too far by the reporter’s ridiculous line of questioning.
Hyla himself, a Los Angeles-based reporter for the Australian entertainment program The Project — the 45-year-old Blanchett is a native of Melbourne, Australia — posted an Instagram message after the Wednesday interview, making light of the incident.
“Thanks to my new favorite person Cate Blanchett for what might have been the best worst interview I’ve ever done,” he said in the post, which also featured clips from earlier parts of the interview in which he and Blanchett were apparently laughing and joking.
But as seen in the video above, when Hyla asked her a question about the cat used in the Cinderella film, Blanchett was pretty much finished.
“OK, serious question: How were you able to get that cat to do what you wanted to on a leash?” Hyla asked. “I tried putting my girlfriend’s cat on a leash and it just never works for me.”
Blanchett appeared stunned into disbelief.
“That’s your question?” the Blue Jasmine star replied. “That’s your question? That’s your f*****g question?!”
Hyla protested — apparently referring to an earlier exchange in the interview — that Blanchett had wasted much of the interview’s allotted time “talking about vodka.”
At that point, Blanchett curtly extended her hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”
In Australia, the exchange was seen as Cate Blanchett clearly expressing irritation with the reporter.
“In an attempt at humor, Channel Ten reporter Jonathan Hyla asked Blanchett a bizarre series of questions, but she became visibly irritated at his interviewing style,” wrote Canberra Times reporter Tom Decent, who viewed the entire Cate Blanchett interview. “It all became too much for Blanchett, who was trying to plug her Disney film.”
[Image: Channel Ten (Australia) Screen Grab]