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Cate Blanchett says his latest role in “Mrs America” ​​playing the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly is an unusual perspective for touching on the history of the American Equal Rights Amendment. (January 17)

AP Entertainment

Cate Blanchett in “Stateless” is what memes are made of.

In the first episode of the Netflix miniseries (streaming Wednesday), the double Oscar winner deliciously disturbs as a charismatic teacher named Pat, who directs a service cult in a dance studio. Pat’s sinister scenes are juxtaposed with gay scenes of herteaching dance lessons in Easter egg-colored tracksuits, and running a hammered cover of “Let’s Get Away From It All” in a sparkling ball gown.

“I was channeling Rosemary Clooney,” said Blanchett of the production number for the slave’s premiere. “Pat was an incredibly fun and depressing character to play. I was able to sing, I was able to dance,” and playing a supporting role, “helped the show be done in every way possible.”

The choice to start “Stateless” with a light camp is entirely deliberate. The six-episode drama, which Blanchett co-created with Elise McCredie and Tony Ayres, takes place mainly in an immigration detention center and follows a white Australian woman named Sofie (Yvonne Strahovski from “The Handmaid’s Tale”) who is being held by mistake Down Underafter fleeing a cult.

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Sofie’s initial facility at the detention center where she presents herself as a German woman who demands to be deported “backhome” is in stark contrast to the inhuman treatment and the life and death issues of hundreds of other detainees like Amer Bazzi), an Afghan refugee who was separated from his family after fleeing the Taliban.

“We are using Sofie’s story to give the audience a touch point in the series,” said Ayres. “There is mystery, there is intrigue, and there is Cate Blanchett who sings a song. What better way to get an audience to watch our show than through it? Hopefully, the idea is that we will then bring an audience to invest in the other characters in the film. ” other parts of history, which are in many ways stories of refugees. “

Some television critics have questioned the choice to do a show on refugees where three of the four main characters are white, especially with the resumption of media representation conversations this summer,following national demonstrations against racism. (Besides Strahovski, Jai Courtney and Asher Keddie play respectively a guard and a bureaucrat.)

Blanchett acknowledges the criticism, but encourages viewers to watch “Stateless” throughout. She calls Ameer’s daughter, Mina (Soraya Heidari), “the beating heart of history”.

“We are by no means saying that this is the only way to tell this story,” says Blanchett. “I can’t wait for many more refugee stories to be told on television, in a film or in a documentary. Essentially, it’s about trying to capture a large audience, because often the reality is that you start talking about refugees and asylum seekers and the global displacement crisis … and (people) about the diversion because it’s too huge. So we wanted to create a feeling of “it could be me, it could be you, “and so often it’s the experience of white people. But then you go into the series, and there’s a multi-diverse array of characters.”

Blanchett, 51, has worked and traveled abroad as a goodwill ambassador to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since 2016, and says she hopes to capture the “deep resilience” of refugees in “Stateless”.

The show arrives on the heels of another TV project esteemed for the Australian actress, who also produced the FX miniseries “Ms. America” ​​earlier this year. Blanchett portrays real life Phyllis Schlafly, an outspoken anti-feminist and conservative activist who opposed the Equal Rights (ERA) ratification movement in the 1970s.

“Mrs America” ​​ends (spoiler!) With a long catch of Phyllis peels apples at her kitchen table, after being ignored for a position in the office of Ronald Reagan and her husband asks to have dinner.

“It’s a bit of a tribute to” Jeanne Dielman “,” a historic feminist film from 1975, says Blanchett. “Fortunately, I am an expert apple peeler and I make an apple shoemaker.”

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