Why Disclaimer's Alfonso Cuarón Was 'Terrified' Cate Blanchett Would Turn Down His New Show

When award-winning Actress Cate Blanchett stares right into the zoom camera during her emmy interview and offers up a revelation like, "God, I'm pretty much embarrassed by everything that I do," She delivers it so convincingly, the natural impulse is to take her at her word. Unless she's being overly modest. ...

There's small comfort in knowing that she once left a legendary writer and director flummoxed. As Alfonso Cuarón tells it, he and Blanchett often saw each other in passing at film festivals and on awards-show circuits. During one such occasion, "She said, 'I'd love to work with you,'" he recalls. His reaction? "'Whatever,'" he says with a laugh. "'Who knows? She says that to everybody!'"

Not only does Blanchett deny the claim ("I don't say that to everybody! I was harassing you"), she can now proudly back it up with seven hours of searing television.

Blanchett stars in Disclaimer, an Apple TV+ limited series premiering October 11. Based on Renée Knight's 2015 bestseller, the psychological thriller — created and solely written and directed by Cuarón — features a dizzying display of both taut suspense and sexually charged drama that unfolds at a rapid pace straight through the shocking climax.

Blanchett plays Catherine Ravenscroft, a wife, mother and well-regarded journalist whose posh London life unravels with the literal turn of a page. One night, she arrives home and spots a book on a table. Titled The Perfect Stranger, it opens with a cryptic disclaimer: "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence." As Catherine pores over its contents, she's aghast to discover that the author has exposed her darkest secret: Twenty years earlier, while on holiday in Italy with her preschool-aged son, Nicholas, she had an affair with a younger man (Louis Partridge, Pistol) and was indirectly responsible for his death.

However, there's much more to the story. In Catherine's frantic dash to track down the man responsible for the book (Kevin Kline, The Good House), calm her incensed husband (Sacha Baron Cohen, The Spy) and care for the troubled Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Power of the Dog), she's forced to confront what really happened during those days when she was purportedly frolicking in the sun. To add to the intrigue, multiple characters narrate each episode. "The perspectives are based on who holds the power," Blanchett says. "And a lot of the time, the power is not in Catherine's hands, which I found quite an upsetting thing to play. For years, she couldn't explain the situation to herself or to other people, and then she wasn't given the chance to unpack it."

Blanchett has spent the past quarter-century taking on risky roles and winning accolades for her efforts. For the FX on Hulu limited series Mrs. America, she received two Emmy nominations, including a nod for her work as an executive producer and one for her leading role as real-life conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. She has also collected two Oscars (Blue Jasmine, The Aviator) and six more nominations.

"I think the word I'd use is magnetizing — she just has lovely energy," says Smit-McPhee. Though the two are both native Aussies, they had never met prior to filming. He was amazed by what he saw. "Cate could be having fun and having a laugh, and then, because she's filming something extremely serious, she can just flip a switch and tap into her work," he adds. "It's rare to see an actor have that ability."

She also has a knack for delivering unsympathetic characters: Think demanding composer Lydia Tár (Tár) and unhinged New York City socialite Jasmine French (Blue Jasmine). For Disclaimer, Blanchett ups the challenge by throwing herself into the prickly drama from the opening moments.

“In a normal film, you’ll have 20 minutes of family life when you get to know her and relate to her and figure out who she is,” Cuarón says. “But Cate has to go from 0 to 100 in the first episode, and she has to keep that up for the entire series.”

On this hot Tuesday afternoon near London, Blanchett is sitting inches from Cuarón at a table after wrapping their emmy photo shoot. She exudes a regal presence just sipping a hot drink from a porcelain mug and answering questions about her craft.

Married to playwright-screenwriter Andrew Upton, with whom she shares four children, Blanchett makes only passing references to her family in conversation. She refuses to maintain any social media profiles or be sucked into the noise because, “I don’t have the time, and as an audience member, I don’t want to think about someone’s relationship or the brand they’re endorsing when I’m watching them in a film or on television.” Only Cuarón is able to disarm her when he playfully teases that she keeps a covert TikTok account. She replies with a shriek and a “No!”

He’s clearly a fan. Cuarón, in fact, conceived this adaptation with his leading lady in mind. “When I decided to start writing the script, I was only looking at Cate,” he says, “from the get-go.” He turns to her with an admission: “I was terrified that you wouldn’t do it. I can tell you this now.”

Blanchett’s response: “As if!”

The truth is, after toplining Mrs. America and the Netflix war-refugee drama Stateless in 2020, she was eager to take on another TV project. “I really enjoyed both stories,” she says. “The experience is different when you consume something from the intimacy of your own home. It’s more accessible.” Disclaimer was an instant yes, she says, because of Cuarón. “This was 100% about working with Alfonso,” she explains. “I was like, ‘I’m going to do it. It doesn’t matter what it is.’”

To read the rest of the story, pick up a copy of emmy magazine here.

This article originally appeared in its entirety in emmy magazine, issue #11, 2024, under the title "A New Chapter."