Cate Blanchett is discussing her new production of Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull when she brings up one of her pet peeves: audience participation in theater.
“It’s an act of aggression when people step off the stage and start singling people out,” the actress, 55, tells PEOPLE in an excluswith a touch of dry humor. (For the record, her show doesn’t have audience participation.)
Blanchett was in New York briefly to promote her new spy thriller Black Bag — costarring Michael Fassbender, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan — before jetting back to the U.K. for more performances.
But her brief and funny aside about audience participation brings to mind another of Blanchett’s annoyances: Leaf blowers. Through the years, the actress has been very vocal about her disdain for the devices, notably on a 2022 episode of Hot Ones.
Asked about it again, she doesn’t hold back. “They’re the most moronic invention,” says Blanchett. “They’re a symbol of all that is wrong with us as a species.”
As for whether she is surprised that various interview clips that feature her sounding off on leaf blowers have gone viral, the two-time Oscar winner says she isn’t. “I talk about it all the time,” Blanchett explains.
“You just got me going about leaf blowers. They’re moronic. I mean, if you see someone with a leaf blower, doesn’t your blood pressure go up?” she then asks Fassbender, 47, who has joined her for the interview.
“I usually hear them first,” the actor adds. “It’s the sound. I wonder when they’re going to come up with a silent leaf blower. But yeah, it’s like blowing the leaves in another place.”
“But blowing them from one side to the other during a windstorm. I mean …” responds Blanchett.
“Bring back the rake,” Fassbender then offers, as Blanchett agrees: “Yeah, bring back the rake.”
The easy banter between the costars translates to the screen. In Black Bag, they play married spies Kathryn St. Jean and George Woodhouse, who lie to each other out of necessity since their jobs require it.
As George is tasked with finding out who in his agency is a potential traitor, he looks into several coworkers, including Kathryn.
“The weird thing about these characters is they work so closely with one another, and so they know operationally so much about one another and have a lot of information on one another, but yet they don’t actually know what’s going on with each other,” says Blanchett.
Black Bag is now playing in theaters.
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