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Cate Blanchett says #MeToo movement 'got killed very quickly'

7:45pm
Cate Blanchett poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Paper Tiger' at the 79th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 16, 2026.

Cate Blanchett says the #MeToo movement “got killed very quickly” in Hollywood.

In a wide-ranging staged conversation at the Cannes Film Festival, Blanchett lamented that the tide of #MeToo has been turned in Hollywood, where she has been outspoken about gender equality.

“It got killed very quickly, which I think is interesting,” said Blanchett.

“There are a lot of people with platforms who are able to speak up with relative safety and say this has happened to me," Blanchett said.

"And the so-called average woman on the street, person on the street, is saying MeToo.

"Why does that get shut down?”

In 2018, when she was president of the jury in Cannes, Blanchett took part in a red-carpet protest.

She and 81 other women appeared on the steps of the Palais des Festivals, symbolically representing the number of female directors who were selected for Cannes' competition lineup. Over the same period, 1866 male directors had been selected.

“I’m still on film sets and I do the headcount every day. There’s 10 women and there’s 75 men every morning,” Blanchett said.

“I love men, but what happens is the jokes become the same," she said.

"You just have to brace yourself slightly, and I’m used to that, but it just gets boring for everybody when you walk into a homogeneous workplace.”

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