Cate Blanchett Has Had Relationships With Women ''Many Times'' but Doesn't Put a Label on Such Things

"I never thought about it," Oscar winner told Variety about how she envisioned the gay character she plays in Todd Haynes' Carol

Count Cate Blanchett among the celebrities who find that using labels when it comes to sexuality is highly unnecessary.

While talking to Variety about her role as a gay woman in the 1950s in Todd Haynes' Carol, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt, the two-time Oscar winner was asked if this was her first turn as a lesbian, and she coyly replied, "On film—or in real life?"

So obviously she was then asked if there were any real-life same-sex relationships to speak of, to which Blanchett said, "Yes. Many times." End of story, moving on.

But the Australian actress, who has four children with her husband of 18 years, Andrew Upton, did indicate that she was in no rush to make rules for the character of Carol, a New Yorker who falls in love with a younger department store clerk, played by Rooney Mara.

"I never thought about it," Blanchett said when asked if she had a particular vision for Carol. "I don't think Carol thought about it."

She doesn't consider Carol, whom she says in the film never "comes out" per se, to be the type of person to wear her lifestyle like a badge.

"Her sexuality isn't politicized," she also told Variety. "I think there are a lot of people that exist like that who don't feel the need to shout things from the rafters."

Overall, however, it sounds as though Blanchett looked at the film, which will premiere May 17 at the Cannes Film Festival, as a chance to play another really meaty female character, the kind that she reminded people during her 2014 Oscar speech do still exist for women of all ages.

"It's not serving the audience," she said in the interview with regard to the surplus of male-dominated movies. "People want to see good films. We should have equal access to the multiplexes."

"Midrange films with women at the center are tricky to finance," Blanchett, who was most recently on the big screen stealing all of the wicked stepmother's scenes in Cinderella, added. "There are a lot of people laboring under the misapprehension that people don't want to see them, which isn't true."

"I want it not to be discussed anymore, but it needs to be discussed."