By The hiring of Cate Blanchett for the video game adaptation “Borderlands” came as surprising news at the time.
Though the actress has been in her fair share of blockbusters, and had worked with the film’s director Eli Roth before, it didn’t seem the kind of role she would do.
In a new interview with Empire, the Australian award winner says that’s one of the big reasons she took the part. Also the pandemic was in full swing at the time (the movie was shot in early 2021) when she signed on which might have played a part:
“The crazy asks are usually the things I gravitate towards; the things I could never conceive of. I think there also may have been a little COVID madness – I was spending a lot of time in the garden, using the chainsaw a little too freely. My husband said, ‘This film could save your life.’”
Once she hopped onboard, she delved into the world and found herself surprisingly absorbed:
“My thumbs can barely control a phone, but I bought a PS5 and we played each other. I wanted to know the limits of the game and what fans loved about the character. I got really absorbed in that whole world. The cosplayers. The YouTube make-up tutorials.”
The interview doesn’t touch upon all the behind-the-scenes drama on the film which has undergone major reshoots with Tim Miller reportedly replacing Roth on those reshoots.
Blanchett plays famed red-haired outlaw Lilith, returning to her home planet of Pandora to find the missing daughter of powerful mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramirez).
She forms an alliance with an unexpected team on the way. These unlikely heroes must battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find and protect the missing girl, who may hold the key to unimaginable power.
Part of this initial alliance includes Roland (Kevin Hart), pre-teen demolitionist Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) and her rhetorically challenged protector Krieg (Florian Munteanu), the persistent wiseass robot Claptrap (Jack Black), and mentally unstable scientist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis).
Haley Bennett, Gina Gershon, Janina Gavankar, Cheyenne Jackson, Steven Boyer and Benjamin Byron Davis also star. “Borderlands” is in cinemas on August 9th.
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