Awards ceremonies are like the Avengers movies of Hollywood events as they allow us to see famous faces we don’t usually expect to assemble in the same context, often with hilarious or shocking results — such as Taylor Swift (allegedly) snubbing Celine Dion at the Grammys or Kieran Culkin telling Pedro Pascal to “suck it” at the Golden Globes. Even the BAFTA Film Awards have been getting more noteworthy in recent years, despite typically serving as the polite British cousin to the more risque American shindigs. Let us never forget that Angela Bassett did the thing.
2024’s BAFTA ceremony didn’t exactly give us as memorable a moment as Ariana DeBose’s rap from 2023, but some moments got people talking. Seeing Cate Blanchett seated next to Prince William throughout the awards show was one of them. We all know the Australian icon is a queen of the acting profession, but most of us weren’t aware that she’s friendly with actual royalty. Although we’re not entirely sure if Blanchett is buddies with the Prince of Wales, we do know something about the actress’ connection to his grandparents.
Queen Elizabeth II seems to have been one of Cate Blanchett’s biggest fans
Thinking Cate Blanchett is the best is clearly hereditary as it turns out Prince William is not the only member of the royal family who enjoyed hanging out with the Tar star. In 2018, Blanchett revealed during an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show that she was once invited to have lunch with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. While it was an honor she gladly accepted, Blanchett admitted that she didn’t know why she was there.
“There were 12 of us, and I couldn’t work out for the life of me why I’d been invited,” Blanchett revealed. “Playing Queen Elizabeth [I] and sitting next to [Elizabeth II], I thought, ‘Maybe she’s seen the movie and wants to ask me about my interpretation.'”
Although the fact that Blanchett played Elizabeth II’s own ancestor in two acclaimed movies — 1998’s Elizabeth and 2007’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age — may well have interested the late queen, an unexpected interaction with the Queen’s husband left Blanchett wondering if she was invited along to be a handyman.
“I sat next to [Philip],” she explained. “And he said, ‘I hear you’re an actor? I was given a DVD player for Christmas and I can’t work out whether I put the green cord in or the red cord.’ I thought, ‘He’s invited me to lunch to tell me about his DVD player!'”
Elizabeth II herself had a lot of appreciation for Blanchett. As part of the Queen’s Birthday Honors list in 2017, the actress was made a Companion of the Order of Australia. This was granted in recognition of not just her legacy in the performing arts but also her humanitarian and environmentalist efforts. For context, this is the highest honor available in the Order of Australia and so is the equivalent of a damehood!
Whether Blanchett’s lunch with the late queen and her husband started a long-running friendship with the whole Windsor family is unclear — maybe she sorts all their electronic problems out? — but Prince William certainly seemed to find her good company at the BAFTAs. Especially given that this is just the latest public outing he has made solo, following the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton’s mysterious disappearance of late.