Actress boldly takes on big roles

It seems no iconic figure is beyond Cate Blanchett, who shot to stardom as Queen Elizabeth I, won an Academy Award as Katharine Hepburn and enchanted audiences as the mythic elf Galadriel in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

In “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” opening today, Blanchett reprises her role as the long-reigning queen during her epic struggle to protect England amid a holy war with Spain.

A month later comes “I’m Not There,” with Blanchett one of six actors embodying an icon of modern times: Bob Dylan.

Blanchett plays an incarnation of the musician during the Dylan-goes-electric uproar in the mid-1960s, when fans of his early acoustic sound renounced him for plugging in.

A certain fearlessness is needed to take on figures as familiar as Hepburn and Dylan, a ruler as illustrious as Elizabeth or a character as beloved as Galadriel, or to jump into a rabidly awaited sequel such as her current project, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

“People say, ‘How do you choose a role?’ In the end, I think you really decide in about two and a half seconds,” says Blanchett, 38.

“It’s a purely instinctual response. And then you spend the rest of your time trying to rationalize your way into it or out of it. Sometimes that takes a couple of weeks, and sometimes it takes 10 years, like ‘Elizabeth.’ “

When “Elizabeth” premiered in 1998, Blanchett was little-known outside her native Australia, where she trained in theater and had become an acclaimed stage performer.

An irreverent glimpse of the early, uncertain days of a woman whom history has painted as a steely monarch, “Elizabeth” earned Blanchett a best-actress Oscar nomination.

A supporting-actress win followed for her turn as Hepburn in 2004’s “The Aviator,” and Blanchett received a third nomination for last year’s “Notes on a Scandal,” in which she co-starred with Judi Dench – who won an Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth in “Shakespeare in Love” the same year “Elizabeth” came out.

Though actresses as esteemed as Bette Davis and Glenda Jackson both had played Elizabeth two times, Blanchett was hesitant to return to the role at first. In fact, she had reservations about playing the part the first time around.

“My initial feeling when the film came my way the first time – it was probably hubris, because I was completely unknown and should have been throwing myself at their feet – but I thought, ‘Well, Glenda Jackson’s done this. What do I have to say about it?’ ” Blanchett recalls.

Playing Dylan was an easier sell when Blanchett met with “I’m Not There” director and co-writer Todd Haynes, who also cast Richard Gere, Christian Bale and Heath Ledger among the six actors portraying different sides of the enigmatic rocker.

“I think the title of the section I was in was ‘Electric Star Wreaks Havoc on His European Tour in the Style of Fellini’s “8 1/2 ,” ‘ she says. “When somebody offers you something as insane as that, it would be pure cowardice to say no.”

Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas are maintaining tight secrecy, so Blanchett can’t offer details about her role in the fourth Indiana Jones flick. She is getting to live some of Indy’s adventures, though.

“Steven is saying he makes it my mission every day to give me five butch things to do,” Blanchett says. “He’s saying he’s going to cast me in a film where I’m continually in a harness with five machine guns.

“I’m not in this, but I get to do a few butch things.”

Blanchett next year will reunite with Brad Pitt, her co-star in 2006’s “Babel,” for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

Adapted from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, the film casts Pitt as a man developing backward from old age to infancy, with Blanchett as the lover aging in the opposite direction.

“Why we all want to work with her is she elevates the rest of us,” says Pitt.

“She’s just got some ethereal grace and elegance that’s beyond me, and an acute understanding of human nature.

“She’s just exquisite. She’s otherworldly.”