Cate Blanchett may be one of Marvel’s most memorable villains, but she admits that her time on Thor: Ragnarok involved a steep learning curve — and one that she continued to fall back on while making her recent release, Borderlands. In a discussion of her most iconic roles with GQ, Blanchett said that Marvel Studios “aren’t necessarily used to having a whole script,” and that movies can begin production once a few action setpieces are sketched out. Presumably, this is to give the studio as much time as possible to add in effects after the fact — but she also describes it as “working backwards” to construct a narrative around key moments.
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“Marvel aren’t necessarily used to having a whole script,” Blanchett says in the video (which you can see below). “Often, they will board the essential battles and then they’ll start working backwards and construct their stories. It’s a whole, massive jigsaw puzzle, I don’t know. What I didn’t realize then was [it was] the first time a female villain had been realized onscreen, so that was exciting, but I knew Taika [Waititi] was going to put his own particular spin on it, and that Chris [Hemsworth] was so up for anything and incredibly generous and funny and ready to move this in another direction, so it felt like there was a really playful, exciting energy.”
In the conversation, Blanchett says she joined up with Ragnarok because she was a fan of Waititi’s, and that she had no idea he was going to ask her to appear in the movie when they met.
The comments might seem harsh on the face of them, but Blanchett doesn’t seem especially put out by the process, which she seems to suggest is just Marvel’s way of doing business. She seems to have enjoyed the experience, and to have continued following the franchise after she left, praising Natalie Portman’s impressive muscles for Love and Thunder.
In Thor: Ragnarok, “his devious brother, Loki, has taken over Asgard, the powerful Hela has emerged to steal the throne for herself and Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe. To escape captivity and save his home from imminent destruction, Thor must first win a deadly alien contest by defeating his former ally and fellow Avengers… The Incredible Hulk!”
You can get the movie on disc, digital, or stream it on Disney+.
