Cindy Sherman and Cate Blanchett had only met in passing, a few times. And yet, there is an identifiable common thread between the work of Sherman, the artist who (dis)appears, disguised as a character, in her own photographs, and Blanchett, the protean and Oscar-winning Australian actress. On a gray morning in late April, the women, mutual admirers, gathered at the Hauser & Wirth gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where a collection of Sherman’s critically acclaimed early work opened May 4 and where they quickly forged a connection.
“I’m a huge fan,” Blanchett said, proving her admiration with detailed questions, both technical (Does Sherman use a timer?) and philosophical (“Where is the rhythm in photography?”) . Blanchett had been in town to receive a film award at Lincoln Center, before returning to London, where she is filming “Disclaimer,” an Apple TV+ series directed by Alfonso Cuarón.
Sherman was busy overseeing the exhibit, which includes the 70 stills from her untitled film, the black-and-white photos that put her on the map and rocked the art world, from the late 70s, as well as her subsequent rear screen projection and centerfold images, all in color and all featuring her. Sherman, 68, and Blanchett, who turns 53 this month, visited the exhibit together, eagerly finding commonalities.
“She really takes on different personalities,” Sherman said admiringly.
In 2015, Blanchett starred in “Manifesto,” a 13-channel video art installation by German artist Julian Rosefeldt, in which she played at least a dozen different characters, from newscaster to man without shelter, reciting various artistic and political manifestos. (It was later released as a feature.) “It was inspiring,” Sherman said, adding that she felt like she did some of those characters, too. “It was a nice confirmation, to feel a bit on the same wavelength.”
In what was less of a conversation than a cosmic match, they talked about getting into character, playing in childhood, the value of makeup, and the horror of clowns. These are edited excerpts.
How do you value everyone’s work?
CATE BLANCHETTE Cinema can be very literal. So I find anything you can do to move into a more abstract space. Sometimes it’s a piece of music. But invariably it is an object. Often I do a whole composition on tear paper about feeling around something that I can’t articulate, images that have nothing to do on a conscious level with what I’m doing. Like the Clown series, for example. I can’t even begin to express my revulsion and terror – the visceral feeling of seeing these works [Sherman’s series of lurid clowns]. I tore it for [the Guillermo del Toro film] “Nightmare Alley” recently.
I find that if you slam something left against what you need to do as an actor, it can create something a little more ambiguous. It doesn’t always work.
CINDY SHERMAN I don’t really get into characters that way, but there’s a big difference between what I do and what I play. I’m just still, and because I’m also working alone, I can really mix things up, do the complete opposite of what I thought the character should be doing – and sometimes it works.
Did any of you grow up thinking you had very malleable faces?
SHERMAN I did not do it.
BLANKET No. I used to do this thing with my sister where she would dress me up, put me in front of the mirror and give me a name. Then I should understand that person. My favorite – we kept saying we were going to make a movie about him – he was called Piggy Trucker. He was a little short guy, kind of like an Aussie Wally Shawn [the actor and playwright Wallace Shawn]and he was driving a hog truck. [I was] probably around 7, 8 years old.
SHERMAN It was about dressing up. My mom would go to the local thrift store and for 10 cents would buy these old prom dresses from the 40s or 50s. There were also, I think it was my great-grandmother’s clothes that had been left in the basement . I discovered them, and it was like, wow. It looked like old lady clothes, but also the chasuble kind. When I was 10 or 12, I used to wear them, I used to wear socks to hang down to my waist to look like an old lady [breasts]and go around the block.
BLANKET [laughing, pretending to be Sherman] I knew then that I wanted to be an artist!
A lot of times these things start off as a game and then the exploration becomes, I guess, a seamless transition. It’s not conscious — some of these things you do without thinking.
SHERMAN Yeah. When I was in college, I used to do makeup and makeovers in my room when I studied painting. I think I was working through my frustration with everything that was going on in my life, and my boyfriend at the time finally said, you know, maybe this is what you should take a picture of. And it seemed like a good idea.
Sometimes I go make up [a character] and look in the mirror while I’m posing, and I suddenly feel like I don’t recognize [myself]. Wow, where is she from? It’s kinda scary, kinda cool. [To Blanchett] How do you invent the characters? Like all those for Julian [Rosefeldt]?
BLANKET It was so fast. It was quite interesting to me actually, because you can get really hooked on your character’s story, especially in American acting culture. It all depends on your connection – if your mother or father is dead, use it. It’s really foreign to me anyway. I’ll talk to my therapist about it. What was really great about Julian was that there was no psychology. It was just a series of actions. Most of the time, we don’t think about what motivates us. You are Do things. [To Sherman] You also did some male incarnations.
SHERMAN It was much more difficult. I just had to become confident in a way that I, as a woman, may not be. Once I relaxed into character, I [sometimes] felt, he’s a very sensitive guy.
Cindy, in the stills from the movie, you said you tried to have very little visible emotion, at least on your face. Why?
SHERMAN I obviously didn’t want to be happy or sad, tormented or angry. I wanted it to feel like the moment right before that emotion, or right after. I realized it sounded too cheesy, if I overreacted. So it just brought a more neutral mystery, because you’re [wondering]What is happening here?
BLANKET Often a smile is a defense. It’s actually a stop rather than an invitation. When you smile with your eyes, that’s where the authentic comes from. One of the many things that is so powerful about your job is creating that expectation [of emotion] but does not deliver, so there is a kind of strange void. It’s the disconnect between what we present and who we really are, and that void between the two. This is often the space where all our personal horror lies.
[To Cindy]It’s interesting, you go through this process on your own. I’m not a big fan of the monologue. I did a play once, a Botho Strauss play, where I had a monologue for 25 minutes. It was like, wow, this is lonely. Often in movies there is no repetition or even conversation about things. You’re just supposed to walk and deliver. You think about the outcome, and I find that to be a pretty deadly way to work.
I realized over the years that my relationship with the costume designer and the hair and makeup artists was really deep. It’s deep to see what the character looks like, and therefore how a character can move or project. These departments – the so-called “female guilds” – are often things the male directors pretend to know nothing about. “I’m just going to leave this piece to you.”
I played Elizabeth I years ago and the director, who I love and respect, has always been, I just want her hair down, blowing in the wind. I said, have you seen the pictures of Elizabeth I? There weren’t many like that.
But it’s because [some male directors] need to feel attracted. They can’t see that there are other ways – not even sexual ones – to be attractive. You can draw an audience into a character’s experience in a number of ways. I keep coming back to clown images – you can tell I’m really bothered by them. When you take them, do you think: I want people to feel disgusted by this?
SHERMAN Even the disgusting things I’ve done – grotesque things with rotten food – I want people to feel a bit repelled, but attracted and laughed at, all at the same time. I don’t want people to take it too seriously.
I’ve always been drawn to horror movies, and I liken it to feeling like I’m on a roller coaster. You know you’re not going to fall, but you can still be terrified. And then it’s all over. I think that’s how fairy tales worked back then. I was trying to do that with my work, make it look like, oh, pretty colors from afar! And up close – oh, it’s kinda awful. But then you get the joke.
In the mid-80s, this company in Paris asked me if I wanted to do commercials for French Vogue. This is where I started playing with fake blood and fake noses. They hated it, of course. It inspired me to make it much darker. I have fake scar tissue and fake body parts. Eventually I found these dentures – fake [breasts and butts] was the perfect way to start playing around with nudity, partly because I think I hid in work. The idea of literally revealing a part of myself was never the point.
BLANKET I’m pretty kinesthetic — that’s why I love being on stage, I feel like I’m always better in motion. You’re so amazing, there’s so much movement, and then it’s all captured in this still, vibrant image.
It’s like when you go to see the dance. It’s that moment of [sharp inhale] suspension before someone lands, it’s so exciting. And so well that [your photographs] are not titled. You don’t have to give them a particular meaning. This work is like a litmus test. Thank you.
