The Australian actor reiterates her distaste for fashion-focused interviews with female stars on red carpets before awards

Cate Blanchett has blasted the media obsession with women’s fashion on red carpets and called for interviewers to keep their questions focused on movies. Speaking to the Australian edition of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, the Oscar-winner said premieres and awards ceremonies should be a celebration of performances rather than sartorial razzmatazz.



“Since I’ve been strutting the red carpet, things have changed a lot,” Blanchett reportedly says. “The way women are asked about those red-carpet moments. Oh my God. It’s just a dress!”



She adds: “[People] forget the fact that women are up there because they’ve given extraordinary performances. It’s a wonderful excuse to dress up and have F.U.N. But let’s not forget the work.”



Blanchett’s comments come after the US-based Representation Project launched a campaign utilising the hashtag #askhermore during the recent awards season. The project aimed to highlight the unwillingness of red-carpet reporters to delve beyond the sartorial surface when interviewing female actors.



At this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards in January, actors such as Julianne Moore and Jennifer Aniston refused to put their hands in the E! Network’s “mani cam”, a miniature red carpet designed for well-manicured celebs to “walk” their hands down. So the campaign appears to have picked up some traction in Hollywood.

Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss went one step further by pretending to flip the bird towards the camera, much to the horror of the attendant E! presenter at the live broadcast. At the same ceremony, Blanchett admonished a cameraman for panning up and down her dress, demanding: “Do you do that to the guys?”