Cate Blanchett, widely praised as one of the most accomplished actresses working today, picked up a new potential stage trick during her appearance on Hot Ones.
At the top of the new episode, available in full up top, Blanchett revealed she was “really scared” by the assortment of sauces ahead of her.
“I’m really scared but I guess it’s probably the closest you’ll ever get to knowing what menopause feels like,” Blanchett, whose excellent new film Tár expands its theatrical run on Friday, joked.
Deep into the expectedly insightful discussion, Blanchett noted that her eyes started watering, at which point she recalled a bit of advice she once received from a fellow actor before updating that advice for the current moment of saucery.
“Now my eyes are watering,” she said around the 12:34 mark. “You know, that’s an amazing trick actually. … An older actor, a stage actor, told me, ‘You know, if you need to cry, you turn upstage and pull a nostril hair.’ And it works. But now I know if you turn upstage, you’ve got a little bit of hot sauce on your finger, and then, yeah, you can play Greek tragedy.”
She also enthusiastically pitched a Documentary Now! send-up of the show with hot questions and even hotter wings, notably starring herself as host Sean Evans.
As for that definitely-should-happen parody pitch, Blanchett proposed the idea while discussing her prior involvement with the Documentary Now! series, co-creators of which include Seth Meyers and Fred Armisen.
“How would we parody this?” Blanchett first asked aloud around the 16:55 mark before answering the inquiry herself. “Look, make a documentary about yourself, then I’ll send it to Seth. Then I could play you. You know, that’s a meta idea, isn’t it?”
See the full new Hot Ones above via YouTube, then be sure to catch Tár at a theater near you.