A Blanchett–Yakusho team-up? Cate Blanchett puts the offer on the table
At a Tokyo film festival, Cate Blanchett and Kōji Yakusho shared an onstage beat that turned heads and left fans wondering what exactly passed between them.
On stage at the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 30, the conversation was supposed to be about displaced filmmakers. Then Cate Blanchett turned to surprise guest Kōji Yakusho and lobbed a different kind of question — a casting invite in plain sight.
“When are we gonna work together?” Blanchett asked, before adding with a laugh: “That’s my question, it has nothing to do with the Displacement Film Fund.”
Yakusho had just finished reflecting on a slate of five shorts supported by the Displacement Film Fund. He singled out Mohammad Rasoulof’s Sense of Water for its quiet look at loneliness and hardship, and said Shahrbanoo Sadat’s Super Afghan Gym left him smiling.
The moment also connected two strands of Blanchett’s recent work. She co-founded the fund to back filmmakers forced from their homes and storytellers exploring exile; apparel brand Uniqlo is a founding partner, and Yakusho has collaborated with its Peace for All charity initiative. And if she does link up with him, it would follow a run of global acclaim for Yakusho, who won Best Actor at Cannes 2023 for Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.
Blanchett’s alien detour
While that dream pairing percolates, Blanchett’s current calendar already features an extraterrestrial left turn in the Zellner brothers ’ sci‑fi comedy Alpha Gang. A first-look image released in September shows her nearly unrecognizable — dark hair, eyepatch, leather — as one of several aliens posing as a 1950s motorcycle gang in Eastern Europe, only to find their invasion short-circuited by inconvenient human feelings.
- Directors — David and Nathan Zellner (Sasquatch Sunset)
- Cast — Cate Blanchett, Chris Pine, Léa Seydoux, Dave Bautista, Lily-Rose Depp, Riley Keough, Doona Bae, Kelvin Harrison Jr.
- Producers — Blanchett’s Dirty Films among the producers
Alpha Gang screened at Telluride and Toronto in September before its Japanese premiere in Tokyo on October 30, where Blanchett appeared with the Zellner brothers. A wider theatrical release date has not been announced.