“PERSONALLY, I was so ready to be physical,” says Cate Blanchett (55) about playing against type in an action-adventure comedy inspired by the hit video-game franchise, Borderlands.
The two-time Oscar winner transformed from her last role as a world-renowned conductor in Tar to an outlaw, portraying infamous bounty hunter Lilith who returns home to the planet of Pandora on a mission to find the missing daughter of one of the universe’s most powerful figures who may hold the key to unimaginable power.
Blanchett spent more than three hours each day altering into the recognisable role with a wig of flame-coloured hair that could be maintained throughout the active shoot in Budapest, while her signature weapon was a Vladof infinity pistol.
“I had to be able to pull it out of the holster and spin it convincingly,” Blanchett said.
“Fortunately, my eldest son has been a drummer and could spin sticks and it turns out guns. So he fast-tracked me.
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“Borderlands is pure fun. Personally I was so ready to be physical, throw myself around and have some pure unabashed fun.”
On her mission, Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits, including oddball scientist Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), pre-teen demolitionist Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), Tina’s “psycho” protector Krieg (Florian Munteanu) and respected mercenary Roland – played by comedian Kevin Hart.
Hart said he “got really physical with some serious training”, which included drilling with Blanchett at a shooting range.
“Doing something completely different from what we have been known for has been good for Cate and me, I couldn’t ask for a better partner,” the 45-year-old said.
Director Eli Roth said Hart, known for playing sidekick characters in his acting career, wanted to make the transition like Will Smith from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air to Bad Boys, or Eddie Murphy “when he went from 48 Hrs. to Beverly Hills Cop”.
“He’s so ready to not be the sidekick and to be an action hero,” Roth said. “I think everybody wanted to reinvent themselves in a certain way and do something out of their comfort zone.”
The film marked a reunion for Roth, Blanchett and Black – who voices diminutive robot Claptrap – after their 2018 film The House With A Clock In Its Walls.
“It was amazing, we had the best time and Kate said ‘you’re not allowed to make another movie without me’. When Cate Blanchett tells you that, you tend to listen. So she was the first one I went to and she said ‘I trust you, let’s go for it’,” Roth said.
“I wanted her as a p***ed off bounty hunter and I wanted to see Jack Black as an annoying robot. Once you have Cate, everybody wants to be in the movie – Jamie Lee Curtis said ‘you had me at Cate Blanchett’.”
Meanwhile, now 16-year-old Greenblatt made efforts to stand out for the role of demolitions fanatic Tiny Tina during her audition tape, learning to light a match and swallow it.
“I learned a little pyro fire trick to shock him [Rot]),” Barbie star Greenblatt said.
“I auditioned for Tiny Tina in the midst of filming a separate movie, so the only extra time I had was when I would wrap at night and I’d come home.
“I filmed my tape at 3am in the bathroom of this house that I was staying at. I feel like it definitely added a good Tiny Tina layer because I was delusional, and it added some manic-ness, which worked.
“I instantly fell in love with this character and I felt so free and fun and I felt so creatively fulfilled after really diving into Tiny Tina and the video game and what I wanted her to look like.”
Greenblatt said she “begged” her stunt double to allow her to perform many of the stunts on set herself because “stunts have always been my favourite aspect of filming”.
“There’s so many fun sequences and crazy kind of flips that I do and spinning motions that were just so fun for me. I used to dance when I was younger so it kind of felt like that, just with explosions and fake blood – so even more fun,” she said.
Blanchett described Greenblatt as “scarily professional”, while giving the character a “vulnerability, along with a sense of danger and unpredictability”.
The film’s central and most unexpected relationship is the one which develops between Lilith and Tiny Tina, the girl she’s been tasked with finding.
Gamers will recognise several of Tiny Tina’s signature features including the bunny ears, bandages, non-matching shoes, and the phrase she uses before throwing a grenade: “It’s Badonkadonk time”.
A key figure in Tiny Tina’s life is her stalwart Krieg – from a tribe of bandits recognised for being shirtless, masked and skilled in brutal combat – and their relationship serves as a reminder of the family you choose.
Despite being used to training for roles, Creed star Munteanu said: “I’m basically shirtless all the time so what really changed was the diet, I really was on a calorie deficit, couldn’t eat too much, and had to really push through the entire shooting time.
“That was probably the toughest part, because I had to restrain myself from all the good stuff.”
Roth, who co-wrote the screenplay alongside Joe Crombie, said he was glad to have tackled a handful of films before taking on Borderlands, which he described as “a lot”.
However he stated he had “incredible source material” to work from as creator of the Borderlands franchise Randy Pitchford and producer Ari Arad “had spent seven years writing different drafts, so when I came on they had the story cracked and different drafts that I could use”.
Roth said he drew inspiration from films he loved including Escape From New York, Mad Max, Blade Runner, and The Fifth Element – which he described as a “huge influence”.
