Cate Blanchett stops stage performance to address audience: Here's why

While performing in a London-stage production, Electra/Persona, at the National Theatre, Cate Blanchett reached a moment when she had to address the audience.

Midway through the performance, she noticed some members of the crowd were filming her.

She stopped right there and turned their attention to them.

“There are few places on this planet where we can simply be together and be present,” the Thor star said.

Though the actress did say, “I understand you like filming the curtain call, and it is kind of flattering in a way."

However, she added, "But for anyone who is filming the show, please don’t, because it spoils it for the next group of people who come in and are present with us."

"So thank you very much," the actress said, according to Variety.

Benedict Andrews, meanwhile, directed the play, with Blanchett alongside Nina Hoss.

Interestingly, the Academy-winning actress began her career on stage and went on to collect many laurels.

Yet at the start, she wasn't sure she could work in Hollywood.

“I was resigned, happily, to a career in theatre. I didn’t think I was that girl,” the actress said at the 2025 Rotterdam Film Festival.

“There was a sense women had a certain ‘shelf life’ in the film industry, and a certain type of woman got to parade on the screen, and others didn’t," Blanchett noted.