Cate Blanchett appointed visiting Oxford Professor: “An electrifying opportunity”
Cate Blanchett has lined up her next role, and it’s one not even the bookies could have predicted: Oxford Professor.
The Australian actor will cover the 2026-27 academic year, after she became the latest in a long line of thespians to receive the title of Cameron Mackintosh visiting professor of contemporary theatre at St Catherine’s College, Oxford.
The Carol star has celebrated the news, sharing, “My years of creative practice have granted me the opportunity of sharpening feelings into ideas and offered pathways to insight.”
She added, as per The Guardian, “The visiting professorship is an electrifying opportunity for me to be in direct, robust creative dialogue with the next generation of thinkers and creative doers. I look forward to beginning this creative rumpus.”
Plenty of other household names have previously received the honour, including the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Ian McKellen, Arthur Miller, Meera Syal, Tom Stoppard, Adjoa Andoh, Stephen Fry, Diana Rigg, Trevor Nunn and Deborah Warner.
The role was established as far back as 1990, through a gift from the theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh.
For Blanchett, the role allows her to question the status quo, within her creative field and beyond. “Art breaks down the borders and boundaries of our imagination; it poses questions, and playing with and dissecting it expands and challenges our present reality,” she explained.
Jude Kelly, the master of St Catherine’s College and an esteemed theatre director and producer, shared happily, “Cate Blanchett is one of the most important and influential artistic voices working today, not only through the extraordinary breadth of her work across theatre and screen, but through her longstanding commitment to cultural dialogue, collaboration and public engagement.”
Blanchett is also busy outside of the academic world; her next project includes the drama Sweetsick, directed by Alice Birch. Blanchett will star in the film, which focuses on a woman with a bizarre gift that can show her what others around her need most.
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