布蘭切特 別人想侮辱我時就叫我好萊塢女演員

It was Cate Blanchett’s second time climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge. She couldn’t really say why she wanted to do it, or what it is about heights that appeals to her. She has no interest in skydiving or bungee jumping or parachuting. She’s not especially sporty or athletic. It’s not thrills she likes; it’s control. She once drove her children to the edge of Mount Yasur, an active volcano on the island of Tanna.

這是凱特·布蘭切特第二次爬上悉尼海港大橋(Sydney Harbour Bridge)。她說不上來自己爲何這樣做，也不知道攀高的吸引力從何而來。她對跳傘或蹦極沒什麼興趣，也不是特別健壯或富有運動細胞 。她想要的不是刺激，而是控制。她有次開車載着孩子直至亞蘇爾火山(Mount Yasur)的邊緣。這是一座位於塔納島(Tanna)的活火山。

“It was fantastic to be able to say, I’m deciding to do this,” she said. “I’m deciding the level of safety for my children without someone telling me what to do.”

“能理直氣壯地說，我就決定要這麼做，這種感覺太棒了，”她說。“我自己決定什麼對我的孩子是安全的，而不是讓別人告訴我該做什麼。”

She was wearing a baggy blue and gray flight suit — baggy enough to slip over a pair of loose leather pants and leave room to spare. It wasn’t that she looked good in the suit so much as she made the suit irrelevant. A strap hanging off the belt connected to a cable that ran inside the thousand feet of stairs, catwalks and steel beams of the bridge.

她身着寬鬆的藍灰色飛行服，衣服大得可以輕易容下一條寬鬆皮褲。與其說她穿這身衣服很好看，還不如說她讓衣服變得無關緊要。扣在腰間的繩帶和大橋內部的鋼纜相連。這條鋼纜貫穿了數千英尺長度的階梯、走道和鋼樑。

“I love to climb high things,” she said. We were standing on the midpoint of the exterior archway, with a sniper’s vantage on the opera house. She wanted to go even higher, up a short ladder that led to a rotating red light, but Nick, the climb guide, said it wasn’t allowed.

“我喜歡登高，”她說。我們站在大橋外拱道的中點，這是觀望悉尼大劇院的絕佳位置。她還想走得更高，爬上一段短梯到達旋轉的紅燈處，但攀橋教練Nick表示那樣做是不允許的。

Nick had seen a fur seal in the harbor on his morning run, and Blanchett wanted to know all about it: how big it was, and if it was furry. She had questions about Shark Island. She pointed to Cockatoo Island. “It was a prison for convicts and then it was a reform school for wayward girls, so you can imagine what goes on there.” She pointed and pointed — to ports, to mountains, to secluded spots of green. To mangrove beaches where you can wander and never meet another soul. “People go to the usual places,” she lamented. Then she laughed and her voice dropped into sarcasm. “Like this, for instance. It’s the insider’s Sydney you’re experiencing today.”

Nick說晨跑時看到了一隻海狗，布蘭切特一點細節都不放過：有多大？是不是毛絨絨的？她對沙克島(Shark Island)也很有興趣，然後又指向了鸚鵡島(Cockatoo Island)。“之前那個島是關犯人的監獄，後來又成了叛逆女孩的管教所，你可以想象上面的情景。”她的手指向不同的地方——港口、羣山、偏遠的綠地，還指向人跡罕至的紅樹林海灘。“人們都跑去那些尋常的地方，”她感嘆道，然後笑了起來，用諷刺的語氣說，“比如攀橋，你今天體驗的是最不爲外人所知的悉尼。”

Blanchett had descended to the interior archway and was deploring the gentrification of Brooklyn when a line of identically blue and gray flight-suited figures above began clamoring for attention. They were leaning over the bars, whooping and clapping.

布蘭切特下到了內拱道，一邊還譴責着布魯克林的士紳化現狀。這時，站在高處的同樣身着藍灰色衣服的幾個攀登者開始呼叫，他們身子伏向欄杆外，呼喊拍掌。

“They’re waving at you,” I said.

“他們在向你揮手，”我說。

“I don’t know,” she said.

“這個可不好說，”她說。

“It’s like when you’re on a boat,” Nick said helpfully.

“這情景就像在船上一樣，”尼克幫着圓場。

Blanchett agreed that this situation was like when you’re on a boat. She half-waved at the admirers, a motion at once friendly and plausibly deniable, and continued the descent. She paused on a slip of the bridge that sits between two sets of train tracks to remember when Kevin Spacey pushed somebody — she couldn’t remember who — in front of a train on “House of Cards.” She wished that a train would pass us — better, that two trains would pass us, in opposite directions, at the same time.

布蘭切特同意此刻的情景就像在船上。她向追隨者們微微揮手，動作友好但又彷彿是搖手拒絕，然後繼續往下走。走到位於兩段鐵軌之間的位置時，她停了下來，想起了《紙牌屋》裏的凱文·史派西(Kevin Spacey)把某人（她忘了名字）推向鐵軌的一幕。她希望這時候有列車駛過，如果是兩列車同時相向而行就更好了。

“What if it went, ‘Choom! Choom!’” she said. “We could have the double action!”

“如果兩列火車嗚嗚駛來，”她說。“刺激就翻倍了！”

Then she laughed. “Oh my god, I’m getting hysterical.” Through the open steps the water of the harbor glittered green and jewel-like below.

她笑了起來。“天啊，我有點瘋了。”往兩腳之間俯瞰，悉尼海港的海水在腳下泛着寶石一樣的綠色光輝。

“Transport!” she yelled giddily and threw her arms in the air. A train sped by, granting half her wish. “It’s amazing.”

“火車來了！”她大聲疾呼，手臂在空中揮舞着。一列火車加速駛過，滿足了她一半的願望。“太神奇了。”

The vibrations from the train faded into the noise of automobile traffic as we proceeded single-file toward the climb base. Blanchett was shouting about Chekhov. She especially likes the way he does silences. Chekhov’s silences, she said, are like the moments at a dinner party when everyone stops talking — “stupid silences,” the Hungarian director Tamas Ascher calls them. It’s not that people are thinking of something to say, or motivated by some particular desire. They’re just — there. Just — between.

火車駛過的震動逐漸被車流聲淹沒，我們排着縱隊向起始點移動。布蘭切克大聲談論着契訶夫。她尤其喜歡契訶夫筆下的沉默。她說，契訶夫的沉默就像晚宴上所有人都停止說話的時刻，被匈牙利導演Tamas Ascher稱之爲“愚蠢的沉默”。這種沉默並不是人們在思考該說些什麼，也不是出於某種特別的動機。它就這樣發生了，介於行動之間。

Blanchett, who is 46, is currently starring in her husband Andrew Upton’s adaptation of Chekhov’s “The Present” at the Sydney Theatre Company. She and Upton moved home to Australia in 2008 to take over the company as co-artistic directors. (Her first-ever professional acting job was at the Sydney Theatre, as an understudy in Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls.”) They live with their four children — biological sons Roman, Dash and Iggy, and newly adopted baby Edith, from America — in a suburb of Sydney. Blanchett officially stepped down as co-director of the theater in 2013, but Upton will run the company through the end of the year, and in practice she remains involved; as she put it, “We do everything together.”

46歲的布蘭切特目前在丈夫Andrew Upton的新劇中擔任主演，該劇改編自契訶夫的《普拉託諾夫》(The Present)，在悉尼劇院演出。她和丈夫在2008年把家搬到了澳大利亞，在悉尼劇院公司擔任聯合藝術總監。（她的第一份專業表演工作也是在悉尼劇院，在Caryl Churchill的作品《頂尖女孩》一劇中充當替角。）他們現在和四個孩子一起生活在悉尼郊區，包括三個親生兒子Roman、Dash和Iggy，還有新領養的Edith。布蘭切特在2013年正式辭去劇院聯合總監一職，但丈夫Upton會繼續任職到今年年底。實際上她還一直在參與劇院的工作，正如她說的，“所有事情都是我們一起做。”

Back at the base, Blanchett signed photos for the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb’s celebrity wall and we walked to a nearby restaurant for dumplings and salad. She sat with her back to the window and removed the sunglasses that had obscured half her face all morning. A fine wrinkle cut a shallow line into the side of her jaw, which somehow made her look younger.

回到起始點後，布蘭切特爲名人牆的照片簽了名，隨後我們步行到旁邊的一個餐館，吃了點餃子和沙拉。她背靠窗戶坐着，摘下遮擋了半張臉的墨鏡。此前，她整個上午都帶着墨鏡。一條細紋在她的下巴側方留下了淺淺的一道印記，反而讓她顯得更年輕一些。

She explained that running the theater company had been transformative. It wasn’t only that she shepherded productions she was proud of, including “The Secret River,” based on a novel about Australia’s racial history; “The Long Way Home,” which was performed by servicemen returned from Iraq and Afghanistan; and Botho Strauss’s forgotten “Gross und Klein,” which afforded her the “personally liberating” experience of working with director Benedict Andrews. She also became an advocate for the theater community as a whole. She had to think bigger than just her own company: A healthy “theatrical ecology” means that lots of companies are thriving and everyone’s audiences are growing. This required her to take the microphone, come out of her shell a bit.

她表示，管理劇院的事務給她帶來了很大的轉變。這期間她負責出品了很多引以爲豪的作品，包括根據澳大利亞種族史小說改編的《祕河》(The Secret River)；由從伊拉克和阿富汗歸來的現役軍人出演的《漫漫歸鄉路》(The Long Way Home)；德國劇作家Botho Strauss已被遺忘的作品《大與小》(Gross und Klein)，她有幸在此劇中和戲劇導演Benedict Andrews的合作，這段經歷讓她“釋放了自我”。她還提倡打造一個劇院社區的有機整體，而非僅考慮自己的劇院：一個健康發展的“戲劇生態體系”意味着每家劇院都在壯大且觀衆越來越多。這需要她拿起麥克風，從自己的殼裏鑽出來。

“I learned to not feel responsible to other people’s perceptions of who you are,” she said. “I suppose I’ve gone through a process of maturation, in a way, because running the company is a public position.”

“我學會了不去在意別人對你的身份的看法，”她說。“我覺得自己在一定程度上經歷了一個成熟的過程，因爲管理這麼一個公司是個公共職位。”

I said that I would have thought that being a Hollywood actress would have felt like a public position. Blanchett has appeared in 48 feature films. My in-flight entertainment system had offered seven of them.

我說，在我看來好萊塢女演員也是一個公共職位。布蘭切特出演了48部影片，我乘坐的航班提供的電影中就有七部有她出演。

She frowned, and her eyes clouded. She did not like the phrase “Hollywood actress.” “That’s what they say about you when they want to insult you,” she said.

她皺起了眉頭，眼神有些失焦。她不喜歡“好萊塢女演員”這種說法。“別人想侮辱你時就會這麼說，”她說。

She ignores the trappings of celebrity as best she can, and advises younger actresses not to go on social media, which “creates a culture of self-consciousness.” She is drawn to figures who “have utterly shedded self-consciousness but are completely masters of their technique, like Louise Bourgeois and Georgia O’Keeffe. They’ve got that raw, wrought intelligence.” She also admires Pina Bausch. “If I had my time over, I would have loved to have been in her company,” she said. “She was an incredible, incredible creature — fierce.”

她儘可能地忽視明星身份帶來的那些東西，也建議年輕的女演員們不要玩社交媒體，因爲社交媒體“製造了一種自我意識文化”。而吸引她的人物“徹底擯棄了自我意識，完全掌握了自身技能，如法裔美國藝術家路易絲·布儒瓦(Louise Bourgeois)和美國藝術家佐治亞·歐姬芙(Georgia O’Keeffe),她們有着經過鍛造的鮮活才情。”她也很崇拜德國現代舞編舞者皮娜·鮑什(Pina Bausch)。“如果時光能倒流，我特別想進入她的舞蹈團，”她說。“她是一個不可思議、難以置信的人物，生猛。”

She ran her hand across her hair smoothly, turning in profile with her chin slightly angled down. It’s a gesture she makes repeatedly in “Blue Jasmine” — a moment of putting yourself back together, preparing to meet another.

她的手穿過柔順的髮絲，露出側臉，下巴微含。她在《藍色茉莉》(Blue Jasmine)中經常做出這種姿態——把自己收斂一下，爲下一刻做好準備。

Consider how many of Blanchett’s most notable characters have struggled with these very issues — the burdens of recognition and fame, or the shame of being watched or hunted. Bob Dylan, Katharine Hepburn, Jasmine, Queen Elizabeth, even the art teacher who sleeps with the high school student in “Notes on a Scandal” — they are all tortured by their awareness of other people’s perceptions, and, in the process, lose their composure. Blanchett is especially good at performing this state of just-barely-holding-it-together, that veneer that cracks to reveal an unhinged or demented person inside. Yet her performances grant refinement to the most degraded or distressing situations. She telegraphs something regal and elite; even when her characters are not financially well-to-do, they are never “ordinary.”

回顧一下，布蘭切特最爲人所知的角色中有多少人被這些問題困擾：成功成名的負擔，或是被審視被追趕的恥辱。鮑勃·迪倫(Bob Dylan)、凱瑟琳·赫本(Katharine Hepburn)、茉莉(Jasmine)、伊麗莎白女王、甚至是在《醜聞筆記》(Notes on a Scandal)裏和高中學生有染的美術老師。這些角色都因太在意別人對自己的看法而備受折磨，而不再冷靜。布蘭切特尤其擅於扮演這種崩潰邊緣的狀態，這種美好外表撕裂後所顯露的精神錯亂人格。但她的表演給最不堪、最痛心的場景賦予了一絲優雅。她向四周輻射出一種尊貴和精英的感覺；即使她的角色在經濟上並不寬裕，但無一“平庸”。

This winter she will add another elegant woman under surveillance to her repertoire of roles, playing the title part in Todd Haynes’s beautiful new film “Carol.” (She is also starring in “Truth,” as the CBS producer who approved the “Sixty Minutes” investigation into George W. Bush’s National Guard service.) “Carol” is adapted from “The Price of Salt,” the 1952 Patricia Highsmith novel widely regarded as the first lesbian novel with a happy ending (i.e., nobody dies). The plot concerns an affair between young, unsophisticated ingénue Therese (Rooney Mara) and Carol, a glamorous older woman. Readers of the novel will know the famous road trip sequence — it’s said that Nabokov copied it for “Lolita” — in which the lovers are pursued by a private detective hired by Carol’s ex-husband to build a child custody case against her.

今冬，布蘭切特將在她的角色庫裏再添一個審視下的優雅女性角色。她將在陶德·海恩斯(Todd Haynes)的新片《卡蘿》(Carol)中扮演片名角色。（她還會在《真相》(Truth)一片中扮演CBS的一名製片人，批准調查節目《60分鐘》找出喬治·W·布什在國民警衛隊服役的真相。）《卡蘿》一片改編自派翠西亞·海史密斯(Patricia Highsmith)1952年的小說《鹽的代價》(The Price of Salt)，該小說被廣泛認爲是第一部以喜劇結尾（就是沒有人死掉）的女同題材小說。情節是年輕單純的少女特芮絲（Therese,由魯妮·瑪拉扮演）和美麗優雅的中年貴婦卡蘿之間的戀情。小說讀者一定記得書中著名的公路之旅，據說納博科夫(Nabokov)在《洛麗塔》(Lolita)中借鑑了這一段：卡蘿的前夫僱了一名私人偵探去追蹤這對戀人，目的是爲了獲得對卡蘿不利的證據，以爭取女兒的監護權。

Blanchett has admired Haynes since they first worked together on “I’m Not There.” She compares him to Klausner, a character in the Roald Dahl story “The Sound Machine,” who can hear the clouds moving in the sky and the grass screaming under the blades of a lawnmower. “Todd is a good person, and a wild person, and a responsible person,” she said. “You could probably tell him anything.”

布蘭切特自首次和海恩斯合作《我不在那兒》(I’m Not There)之後就對海恩斯充滿了敬佩。她把海恩斯比作英國兒童文學作家羅爾德·達爾(Roald Dahl)短篇小說《聲音機器》(The Sound Machine)中的Klausner，這個人物可以聽見雲在天上飄動的聲音和割草機下小草發出的尖叫。“陶德是一個好人，一個狂野的人，也是一個負責的人，”她說。“你可以對他無所不談。”

As for Highsmith, she first discovered her novels in the late 1990s, when she was cast in “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

而關於海史密斯，她是在90年代接觸到她的小說，當時她出演了《天才雷普利》(The Talented Mr. Ripley) 。

“She writes so fearlessly — and often ambiguously, but often ferociously — about human relationships and the human heart,” Blanchett said. “I always have this terrible sense of foreboding, like a thrilling sense of foreboding, like something terrible is going to unfold. Like you never feel safe.”

“她無所畏懼地書寫人與人之間的關係和人心，經常隱約其辭，但又兇猛激烈，”布蘭切特說。“讀她的書，我一直有一種不祥的預感，一種驚悚的預兆，好像馬上會有可怕的事情要發生，一直覺得有危險。”

The key to suspense, of course, is control. The knowledge that someone is in control makes danger pleasurable. So much of Blanchett’s life and work revolves around a very careful calibration of control and chaos. Control is what makes ferocity effective rather than only cruel. Control is what makes it fun to visit a volcano. As for her occasional, well-documented eruptions — her facetious comment to a reporter who queried her sexuality, her punch-drunk interview on a “Cinderella” junket in the spring — they would mean something different were it not for their divergence from her usual poise.

然而，懸疑的關鍵當然是控制。知道有人在控制全局會讓危險變成一種樂趣。布蘭切特的大部分生活和工作都是在控制和混亂之間尋找精確的平衡。控制能讓兇猛產生不錯的效果，而非只有殘酷。控制也能讓火山之行變得趣味橫生。布蘭切特偶爾出格一次都會被媒體大寫特寫——在回答記者關於性取向的問題開個玩笑，今年春天在影片《灰姑娘》(Cinderella)的媒體招待會上做的無厘頭採訪。如果不是她當時的表現和平時的鎮靜姿態相去甚遠，這些事根本不會引起如此大的關注。

The conversation returned to the peculiar problem of theater acting: how to be in and out of the flow of the moment, how to practice and prepare and bind together all the “Eureka moments” that recapture the spark of a first reading. The way she explained it, when a scene is working, the actors are equally aware of the person unwrapping a snack in row G and the other bodies on the stage.

我們的談話又回到了戲劇表演的特有問題上：如何進入和走出那一刻的節奏，如何練習、準備、然後把所有“頓悟時刻”連接起來，重新找回初讀時的火花。布蘭切特這樣解釋：當一場戲產生效果時，演員們能覺察到坐在G排的某個觀衆在開零食包裝，同樣也能覺察到舞臺上其他人的行動。

She hates monologue. For her, everything interesting is in collaboration. “That’s the dangerous side,” she said. “You really don’t know where you’re going to go.”

她很反感獨角戲。對她來說，一切有趣的事都是在協作中完成的。“這也是危險的一面，”她說。“你真的不知道你會往哪兒走。”