Queen B: Cate Blanchett

On screen, Cate Blanchett is ethereal, chameleonic, scene-stealing. But, just as she goes from the lead in the thriller The Gift to queen of the elves in The Lord of the Rings, she tells RUSSELL BAILLIE she's a reluctant movie star.

Cate Blanchett doesn't fancy what might be one result of her part in Peter Jackson's The Lord of The Rings trilogy. There will almost inevitably be a figurine of her as Galadriel, queen of the elves. And to capture her look in the film - which from early evidence is a willowy, heavenly creature with tresses as long as some of her fellow cast members' actual heights - it will have to be one hairy little doll.

"I know that's a bit scary," she laughs from somewhere in London where she's finishing Charlotte Gray, an adaptation of the Sebastian Faulkes' Second World War novel directed by fellow countrywoman Gillian Armstrong. "And you know what children do with Barbie dolls."

But you know you've made it when you've been moulded in miniature plastic ...

"Yeah, but I think the price may be a bit prohibitive because the hair is going to be so long so maybe I will stay on the shelf."

But the saleability of the life-size Blanchett continues to rise and rise - she's been involved in a dozen or so movies in the past three years, since coming to international notice with Oscar and Lucinda then in her Oscar-nominated title role in Elizabeth in which she made a fearsome Virgin Queen.

Since then she has rattled through the accents, the time periods, the hairstyles. She's played everyone from a psychic solo mum in the contemporary but backward Deep South of The Gift to Tolkien fairy queen and quite a few points in between.

Along the way she's been called things like "the best actress of her generation" - she's 31 - the plaudits coming for her range, her intensity and chameleonic ability with roles.

So, of course, she must be well sick of people just gushing at her ... .

"No, its lovely," she laughs. "It's very strange ... unless someone stops you in the supermarket, you don't know that anyone has ever seen something, not being a big believer of believing that I read." So she's a reluctant participant in the process that turns actors into stars?

"They are completely different jobs. Let's face it. I'm not a great fan of publicity but there are so many films out there that if you care about something you have got to kind of get on the phone and talk about it and I find that those muscles, the publicity muscles in me are much lazier than the acting muscles."

Laziness or an allergy?

"It could be an allergy. I think that self-consciousness is the death of an actor and I think that publicity can heighten that self-consciousness. It's not that I am avoiding it. It is truly not a focus of mine. If it happens inadvertently good-o, but I'm not going to be driving that tractor."

That mention of farming machinery is a nice way to sidle into The Gift in which she plays Annie, a widow who supports her three boys by giving psychic readings to neighbours and acting as a sympathetic sounding board for their problems.

That gets her involved in a murder case where Keanu Reeves' violent redneck is the number one suspect. It's co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, whom Blanchett starred alongside in Pushing Tin, and directed by Sam Raimi, his follow-up to another backwoods thriller A Simple Plan.

The same could be asked of her Jackson connection considering his Bad Taste past. But what is a drama-schooled, stage-experienced classy actress like Blanchett doing in a movie directed by Raimi, who's still best known for zombie flicks Evil Dead and whose next movie is Spiderman?

"That is what everyone says. But he also directed A Simple Plan and I found him deeply compassionate and human and incredibly funny and I think that is so important on a shoot as intense as The Gift was."

Still it's a bit of a departure for Blanchett - a popcorn flick that's part whodunit, part ghost story. A case of letting that highly adaptable hair down?

"Well I only ever do things that feel good at the time because you can't know how they are going to do. I don't mean 'good' in an indulgent way but satisfying or stretching or reaching into something. I had never done anything in that particular genre which is interesting for me."

And even if it presented Blanchett with yet another accent to master - "I think I've failed at telling the story or creating the character if people are going 'what a great accent or what a terrible accent.' I just don't focus on it" - she was on familiar territory.

"In a lot of ways the world of The Gift feels forgotten - time is misplaced. It's very small town and coming from Australia I'm aware of what a small town feels like and I think that's a universal thing."

From making The Gift in Georgia last year, Blanchett headed to New Zealand for three to four weeks for LOTR. Enjoy it, did we?

"Oh look now it's my turn to gush. Peter looked at me like I was insane. I landed in Wellington - my husband Andrew and I - and within probably about two hours and 15 minutes of being there we said we've got to move here.

"I feel like I should be enlisted by the tourism board of New Zealand. I really did have an extraordinary time there. Obviously on the film as well. You couldn't have made those films anywhere else."

Blanchett is one of only three major women's roles in the entire trilogy - "And I don't really play a woman, I play an elf. I don't know if that really counts. It is a very boys' own adventure."

Even if those Galadriel dolls don't sell, she'll cherish the experience for a long time.

"You could tell every crew member and cast member knew that for better or worse they were part of something momentous or historic and it won't ever happen that way again."

Depending on the configuration of the stories, Blanchett will appear in all three LOTR films. Also on her upcoming slate is the aforementioned Charlotte Gray, The Man Who Cried, Heaven, and Bandits with Thornton and Bruce Willis.

"Work has generated work," says Blanchett about her prolific output.

"When I came out of drama school I didn't work for six months. I don't think anybody knew what to do with me. At the time it was hell but it was kind of the best thing for me because I've never assumed it is going to continue.

"The last four years, certainly the last three, have been really crazily busy in an exciting way but after I left drama school in '93 - it seems a long time ago - film was never really Mecca for me. I sort of gave myself a few years and I would see what would happen. I didn't want rejection to make me into a bitter human being. I'd just go off and be an architect or something, do something useful with my life.

"I feel like I'm beginning a different cycle or something. Obviously my ambitions are quite specific in that they are specifically to work with certain people. I sort of come at acting a bit sideways. I find myself stepping into a role almost without knowing I've done it."

So, time for a break, lie around the house back in Sydney for a while?

"Absolutely. I think for my sake it ends up being cannibalism after a while. If you keep working too much you are drawing on the same wellspring and even if it doesn't bore other people it bores me and I do think there is only a certain amount of time people can look at you on screen. I do think you need to give them a rest."

* The Gift is released on April 26.