Cate Blanchett may have two Oscars, but back in the day, she was glad just to get a free sandwich.
The actress revealed that her miniscule salary on “The Lord of the Rings” films only covered crafts services and her costumes. Blanchett played royal elf Galadriel in the film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson that began in 2001.
“I wanted to work with the guy who made ‘Braindead,’” Blanchett said during “Watch What Happens Live” in the below video. Jackson helmed the 1992 zombie comedy, which was released as “Dead Alive” in North America.
But “The Lord of the Rings” was far from Blanchett’s biggest paycheck.
“Are you kidding me?” Blanchett said when asked about her salary for the blockbuster series. “No, no one got paid anything to do that movie. […] I basically got free sandwiches, and I got to keep my [elf] ears.”
“WWHL” host Andy Cohen later asked if Blanchett “got a piece of the backend,” meaning a cut of the box office grossings. The trilogy made almost $3 billion at the box office.
The “Disclaimer” actress replied, “No! That was way before any of that. No, nothing.”
She added, when struggling to identify which film actually did pay her the most, “Women don’t get paid as much as you think they do.”
Blanchett founded the Proof of Concept initiative to support female and non-binary filmmakers through a partnership with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and Netflix. Blanchett and her production company Dirty Films issued a statement in December 2023 about the importance of “providing tangible financial and career support for filmmakers who often get overlooked” based on their gender and orientation.
However, Blanchett was not the only star of “The Lord of the Rings” who got jipped by a stingy salary: her co-star Orlando Bloom said during “The Howard Stern Show” that he only made $175,000 for all three movies.
Blanchett was one of the only actors to be included in every Jackson-directed “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” movie, with her reprising the role for “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King,” as well as all three “Hobbit” films.
In June 2024, she teased a possible return as Galadriel for the upcoming “Lord Of The Rings” spinoff Gollum film directed by Andy Serkis, who played the titular villain. Blanchett said during the Glastonbury Festival that she would “do anything with Andy Serkis.”
“That bunch of people have been like a life raft for me, and I adore Andy, so yes,” Blanchett said. “I finagled my way into ‘The Hobbit.’”
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