Footage has emerged this week of a pre-fame Cate Blanchett as we've never seen her before, trying her luck on the popular Hey, Hey, It's Saturday segment Red Faces.
Appearing as one half of act 'Kate and Simon' (with 'Tal the token trombone player' on saxophone), Blanchett - then studying fine arts at the University of Melbourne - sang a number titled Weird Love Song, with offbeat lyrics like 'If I was a stamp and you were my mail, I'd cling on tight as we travelled, but if you licked my back too much, I'd make your tongue go dry.'
Cate's Red Faces appearance:
While Cate certainly had the vocal chops to pull off the song, the judges were less than impressed with the oh-so-uni-revue performance. Gonged by Red Symons after about 90 seconds - or one verse - the trio were met with a muted reception by the judges, who awarded them just 12 points out of a possible 30.
While no air-date information was given for the clip when it was uploaded to the official Hey, Hey YouTube channel several days ago, given the fact the trio are University of Melbourne students, we'd hazard a guess it's from the late 1980s, before Blanchett moved to Sydney and enrolled in NIDA, from which she graduated in 1992.
That was the year Blanchett landed her first major stage role, performing alongside Geoffrey Rush in the Sydney Theatre Company production of David Mamet's Oleanna.
We all know Blanchett's a supremely talented actor, but based on her Hey, Hey appearance, it appears she's hidden her singing talents under a bushel through her Hollywood career.