She was replying to a question explicitly mentioning straight people playing gay roles. The question is at the beginning, in Italian (in Part 1 here [ Ссылка ] ), and roughly translates as: "is it difficult for a heterosexual person to play a homosexual person?". She said she was shocked to be asked about her sexuality when promoting Carol. Then goes to on to say she will "fight to the death" for actors' right to suspend disbelief. The press quoted her literally.

Literal transcription of entire conversation below:

Question from the audience: "[...] difficolta' per una persona eterosessuale a interpretare una persona omosessuale?" roughly translating as "is it difficult for a heterosexual person to play a homosexual person?"

Cate Blanchett: it's interesting, when we did the press, for Carol, I was asked repeatedly about my sexuality, in ways that I was never asked when I played a psychic... if I had psychic abilities. (applause). Or if I, you know, played an elf, was I really immortal? And I was profoundly shocked and surprised that my gender as an actress was even an issue because playing a character is finding a point of universal connection. It's not about playing yourself, it's about playing someone else's experience. And... I am going to shut up in a minute... but as a person, I never ever ever think about my gender until a door is closed to me because of it. So I don't ever think about a character's gender, I think about their qualities as a human being. It also speaks to something I am quite passionate about in storytelling generally but in film specifically, is that film can be quite a literal medium, and I will fight to the death for the right to suspend disbelief and play roles beyond my experience. Reality Television and all that entails had an extraordinary impact, a profound impact on the way we view the creation of character. And I think it provides a lot of opportunity but the downside of it is that we now, particularly in America I think, is that we only expect people to make a profound connection to a character when it's close to their experience. And part of being an actor to me is, it's an anthropological exercise, so you get to examine a timeframe, a set of experiences, a historical event that you didn't know anything about... I'm about to play a character whose political persuasions are entirely different from my own, but part of the pleasure... etc.

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