Why Is Academy Award Winner Cate Blanchett Retiring From Acting? Inside Her Bold Decision
For over 20 years, Cate Blanchett has been one of Hollywood’s shining stars, as one of the esteemed few that chooses projects that critics and fans alike adore.
Published April 15 2025, 11:05 a.m. ET
Many would think that when you are one of the most celebrated and in-demand actors in Hollywood, the last thing you would want to do is leave the business — but two-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett has plans to do just that.
For over 20 years, Cate has been one of Hollywood’s shining stars, one of the esteemed few who chooses projects that critics and fans alike adore, resulting in being prominently among the acting A-list.
Why is Cate Blanchett retiring?
In April 2025, Cate shocked fans when she revealed that her days as an actor are numbered. When responding to why she doesn’t think that referring to her as an actress is accurate anymore, Cate replied, “It’s because I’m giving up. … My family roll their eyes every time I say it, but I mean it. I am serious about giving up acting. [There are] a lot of things I want to do with my life,” she said, per The Hollywood Reporter.
“When you go on a talk show, or even here now, and then you see soundbites of things you’ve said, pulled out and italicized, they sound really loud. I’m not that person,” Cate said of how she feels about the heightened world of celebrity. “I make more sense in motion — it’s been a long time to remotely get comfortable with the idea of being photographed.”
Cate continued, “I’ve always felt like I’m on the periphery of things, so I’m always surprised when I belong anywhere. I go with curiosity into whatever environment that I’m in, not expecting to be accepted or welcomed. I’ve spent a lifetime getting comfortable with the feeling of being uncomfortable.”
What has she said previously about retirement?
Per Vanity Fair, Cate has toyed with the idea of leaving the acting world before. “When I was younger, I would wonder why the older actors I admired kept talking about quitting,” she said.
“Now I realize it’s because they want to maintain a connection to the last shreds of their sanity.” She continued. “It’s a love affair, isn’t it? So you do fall in and out of love with it, and you have to be seduced back into it.”
Cate previously shared that never anticipated a Hollywood career.
In February 2025, while speaking at the Rotterdam Film Festival, per Variety, Cate stated that she thought her acting career would be limited to the stage.
“I was resigned, happily, to a career in theater. I didn’t think I was that girl. There was a sense women had a certain ‘shelf life’ in the film industry and a certain type of women got to parade on the screen and others didn’t,” she said.
Up next for Cate is the comedy Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, directed by Jim Jarmusch and co-starring Adam Driver, Charlotte Rampling, and Mayim Bialik. The film is set to be released in 2025.