Actress Cate Blanchett has said the audience will be “surprised by the way the narrative unfolds” in her new TV series, Disclaimer.
The 55-year-old stars as journalist Catherine Ravenscroft in the seven-part Apple TV+ drama, which will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on Thursday evening, and she was also an executive producer on the project.
Disclaimer follows Catherine as she discovers she is a prominent character in a novel which reveals a secret she has been trying to keep hidden.
Speaking to the PA news agency at the film festival, the Australian actress said she hoped watchers would “stick with it through to the end”.
She said: “I’m really excited for it to air on Friday, because I’m curious.
“I mean, the reason why you make these things is for the audience, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a kind of more anticipatory kind of sense of what’s going to happen and what they’re going to make of it, because obviously we know what’s going to happen.
“But I think they’ll be surprised by the way the narrative unfolds and who they think the characters are.
“Hopefully they’ll stick with it through to the end.
“I’m exec producer, and really a sounding board for Alfonso (Cuaron, the director) – it’s totally his vision.
“I’m interested in the whole piece. Whether I die on page nine or on page 99, or don’t die at all, I’m interested in the whole process, from development through to when it hits the audience.”
Cuaron told PA: “The point of departure was Cate, because I wrote the whole script thinking about about Cate Blanchett for the role of Catherine, and it was a big collaboration with Cate to think about the cast, and we wanted something that felt unique for the piece.
“I’m very happy with the amazing group of actors that we got.
“I don’t think it’s confusing, I think it’s engaging, just flow with it, and I’m curious to hear from audiences (about) what happens at the end.
“You know, what is the reaction at the end of things?
“It’s ultimately about two families, and it’s about one family that is struck by pain in marriage, (and) in grief, while the other family is emotionally repressed because of events that happened in the past.
“But the source of the grief of the other families is also the same event that happened 20 years before.”
He said the show would give the audience “a new narrative line that comes into play” and added they are “going to be surprised about” their “own point of view”.
Blanchett added: “It’s probably the hardest thing to not talk about… so I just hope people will watch it.”
