In a segment called ‘Plead the Fifth’ on US talk show ‘Watch What Happens Live’, the Australian actress was asked by host Andy Cohen “What film have you done that gave you the biggest paycheck?”
Cohen made a guess that it was the ‘Lord of the Rings’ series.
“Are you kidding me?” Cate replied horrified. “No, no one got paid anything to do that movie.”
Cohen, shocked, asked if the Oscar winning actress even got a “piece of the back-end [a cut of the film's profits]?”
“No! That was way before any of that, no nothing.” she replied.
“I wanted to work with the guy who made ‘Braindead’ [Sir Peter Jackson].” she laughed. “I mean, I basically got free sandwiches and I got to keep my ears, which is something. They fed me.”
Blanchett, who was on the show to promote her latest film ‘Borderlands’, added “women don’t get paid as much as you think they do.”
The now 55-year-old starred in Jacksons ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy as the magical royal elf Galadriel, a role which she reprised later in ‘The Hobbit’ series.
Though Blanchett is not the only ‘Lord of the Rings’ actor to open up about how little the pay was. Last year Orlando Bloom revealed on ‘The Howard Stern Show’ that he was only paid $175,000 for his role as Legolas in all three films. Around 0.005% of the trilogy's total grossing.
For reference, Bloom was allegedly paid $11.9 million for his role as Will Turner in the second and third instalments of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' franchise, around 0.6% of the total grossing.
Despite the low pay from the first three films, Blanchett recently said she would happily return to her role as Galadriel in Andy Serkis’ upcoming ‘Lord of the Rings’ spin-off.
It was announced in May that Serkis was to direct a new ‘Lord of the Rings’ film centred around his character Gollum. Jackson, the original ‘Lord of the Rings’ director, will return as producer alongside his partners Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.
You can watch the full 'Plead the Fifth' segment here:
