Cate Blanchett Learned How to Play Piano and Conduct for ‘Tár’

Cate Blanchett stunned audiences at the New York Film Festival on Monday night with her stunning performance as Lydia Tár – a fictional famous composer who falls from grace after her past catches up with her.

When writer-director Todd Fields premiered “Tár” at the Venice Film Festival last month, the film immediately garnered an Oscar and a six-minute standing ovation. It’s now gearing up for a limited release in select theaters later this week.

Blanchett spoke on the red carpet at the North American premiere of “Tár.” diversity about the parallels between Lydia Tár’s wild musical ambitions and her own illustrious acting career.

“Any parallel between my experience and their experience will just be there,” Blanchett said. “I had the experience of running a large cultural institution. Lydia is also an artist. She is a musician who, as the film describes, leads one of the largest orchestras in the world. With that comes a lot of corporate responsibility that can impact your relationship with what you do as an artist.”

Blanchett, a two-time Academy Award winner for her roles in The Aviator (2005) and Blue Jasmine (2014), said she “got that dynamic” despite not being a musician herself.

“All the musical terms, the relation to the score, the ability to conduct and play the piano—I had to learn all of that,” Blanchett said. “Your experience is very different, but you don’t have to be an artist to understand the corrupting nature of power.”

During a question-and-answer session after the “Tár” screening at Alice Tully Hall, Fields revealed that he wrote the entire script with Blanchett in mind — long before she agreed to sign on for the film. The second person to join the project was composer Hildur Guonadóttir, who previously won an Oscar for her work on Joker.

Fresh from her Oscar triumph, Guonadóttir said diversity that she had been working on “Tár” for about 18 months and this time took a very different musical approach.

“In ‘Joker’ the music accompanies the character on his quest for madness, so I painted this picture with him,” said Guonadóttir. “But in this film the music is very different. This is a film about the process of making music.”

She continued, “The music really helped shape the inner pacing of the characters in their musical landscape, which is such a big part of the alignments and misalignments they personally go through in the film.”

The film sees Tár lose her grip on the renowned symphony orchestra she conducts in Berlin. The composer begins investing her time with a young Russian cellist named Olga (Sophie Kauer), but when crippling allegations of Lydia’s harmful behavior towards her former students surface, their relationship begins to crumble.

Kauer, a cellist from northern England who learned to speak with a Russian accent by watching YouTube videos, makes her feature film debut in Tár. She expressed her gratitude for the opportunity to work with the “incredible” Blanchett.

“I feel so fortunate that I actually got to learn acting from her,” Kauer said Diversity. “The effort she put into the conducting and the musical aspects – I was blown away by the way she bent over backwards for this film.”

Sharing some of the “generous” advice Blanchett shared with her on set, Kauer said, “She always said to be true to yourself and do what you feel. And that there is no right and wrong, just multiple options.”

While acknowledging the film’s “amazing” ability to address systemic issues faced by the classical music industry, Kauer said she loved how the film posed many questions without providing the viewer with answers.

“The audience should go away and think for themselves,” said Kauer. “Change doesn’t come without discussion, and now people are asking and discussing these questions.”

Bina Daigeler, who has over 60 credits as a costume designer spanning nearly 30 years, said she has observed that the power structures in the film industry have changed significantly over the past decade.

“If I see something I don’t like, it’s a lot easier to address it,” Daigeler said Diversity. “Ten years ago, when I raised something, I was often alone and it was tough. And now I know I wouldn’t be alone. It’s now super easy to change something or say something.”

Focus Features will release “Tár” in select theaters on October 7th, with a wide release planned for October 28th.