Cate Blanchett Says She Got Paid in Free Sandwiches on LOTR

Cate Blanchett attends the "Borderlands" special Los Angeles fan event at TCL Chinese Theatre on August 06, 2024 in Hollywood, California — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Cate Blanchett says she was basically not paid anything to star in Lord of the Rings circa 2001.

In a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen to promote her new film Borderlands, Blanchett was picked to participate in the "Plead the Fifth" segment, for which she was asked three awkward questions and could only "plead the fifth" for one of them.

The second question Cohen put to her was which movie of hers afforded her the biggest paycheck, and hazarded a guess that it was Lord of the Rings.

A shocked Blanchett told him, "Are you kidding me?"

She continued, "No, no, I didn't get paid anything to do that movie."

Asked if she got "a piece on the back end," she told Cohen, "No! That was way before any of that. No, nothing! I wanted to work with the guy who made Braindead." (That's a Peter Jackson movie from 1992, also known as Dead Alive.)

Blanchett then said, "I mean, I basically got free sandwiches, and I got to keep my ears." In the fantasy film, the actress plays Galadriel, and wears pointy prosthetic ears.

When Cohen asked her what her highest paying movie would be if not Lord of the Rings, she said, "Well, not very often. Women don’t get paid as much as you think they do."

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Blanchett ended up pleading the fifth when Cohen asked her which of her very famous male costars was the most high-maintenance, out of a long list including Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Redford, George Clooney, etc, etc.

She appeared on WWHL with her Borderlands costar Gina Gershon. The movie, which was adapted from a video game, is out on Friday and also stars Ariana Greenblatt, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

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Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.