Why Cate Blanchett told Julia Roberts to “suck it”
As two of the best actors of their generation, Cate Blanchett and Julia Roberts have spent years, if not decades, travelling in the same circles, especially at awards shows. When the former claimed one of the biggest prizes in the industry, she opted to use her platform to tell the latter to “suck it.”
It was a strange moment, because nobody had any idea what was going on. Was it an inside joke? Was there a feud between them? Was Blanchett rubbing it in Roberts’ face that she’d won her second Academy Award for ‘Best Actress’ in Blue Jasmine, while the August: Osage County star went home empty-handed after losing ‘Best Supporting Actress’ to 12 Years a Slave‘s Lupita Nyong’o?
The truth is a combination of all three, with a little bit of self-commiseration thrown in for good measure. No, the two decorated Hollywood veterans don’t hate each other, and they’ve actually been friends for a number of years, which is one of the main reasons why Blanchett left everyone so bemused at the Oscars.
Since they’d both been nominated, the pair had made a pact that if one of them were to have their name read aloud and take the stage, they’d try and big a memorable farewell to an altogether forgettable year. For whatever reason, neither of them thought 2013 was up to much, so they opted to bow out with a bang.
During her acceptance speech, Blanchett said, “Julia, hashtag suck it.” When she was pressed immediately afterwards for why she’d made such a vulgar request to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Australia’s only two-time acting Oscar winner played coy: “It happened in the bar with Ms Roberts, and that’s all I’m prepared to say.”
When she was corralled once again and quizzed on why she’d decided to channel a teenage boy’s humour on the most prestigious night on the cinematic calendar, Blanchett again demurred, although she did issue a thinly veiled threat when she stared right down the lens of a camera, pointed her finger, and intoned, “Watch it, Julia, I’m coming for your ass.”
The Lord of the Rings alum would leave it at that for over a year, until her demands that Roberts suck it were dredged up when she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, not that people would have been able to forget since it happened on a broadcast that was beamed into millions of homes worldwide, and it’s not like Oscar winners tell their contemporaries to suck it live on television all the time.
“It was a pretty crappy year, so it was like, ‘Farewell 2013,'” Blanchett claimed. “We said that if either of us had the good fortune to be up there, we had to kiss it on the ass, goodbye. I didn’t kiss her ass… I wouldn’t mind.” It’s an unusual explanation, seeing as the actor suggested that she was saying goodbye to 12 months and 365 days, which didn’t really come across since she specifically told Roberts, and Roberts alone, to suck it, which is a lot different from kissing something, or someone, on the arse.
A decade later, when Blanchett received the Critics’ Choice Award for ‘Best Actress’ in Tár, she revealed that Roberts had presented her with a bottle of mouthwash backstage in the evening. If your mind dwells in the gutter, then you can draw your own conclusion as to what that could potentially mean.
