Blanchett was scared to play Dylan says director

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-09-05 09:42

VENICE - That Cate Blanchett found her latest screen role "very scary" comes as no great surprise. She was playing Bob Dylan.

The unusual casting was made by U.S. director Todd Haynes, whose movie "I'm Not There" is a complex portrayal of the singer-songwriter using six performers to play Dylan, including Australian-born Blanchett, a young black actor and Richard Gere.

In competition at the Venice film festival, where its world premiere is on Tuesday, the biopic seeks to avoid reducing Dylan to an easily definable type, and gives a sense of how difficult the ever-changing musician is to categorize.

"Cate was scared. She told me many times that this was a very scary challenge for her," Haynes told reporters after a press screening of the two-and-a-quarter hour film. Blanchett,38, was not at the briefing.

"I think it took her a long time to commit to the role and she's a very busy actor and had to balance it with her schedule, but mostly I think it was due to fear, which is completely understandable."

Blanchett, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburnin "The Aviator," plays Dylan at a time when he shocked folk followers by embracing amplified rock and struggled with the media which sought to define him as a folk protest singer.

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