To promote a project these days, it seems an actor must be filmed eating chicken with one of two media personalities or share their hottest take on the New York City subway. During her most recent turn on the press circuit, Cate Blanchett, who stars in the just-released Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag, opted for the latter. It’s a natural choice, since the Oscar winner has had the perfect “Subway Take” in her arsenal for years. When Kareem Rahma, the host of the popular TikTok series, asked the question that begins every video in his franchise—“So, what’s your take?”—Blanchett answered with one of her most staunch, well-established opinions: “Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth.”
“It’s a metaphor for what’s wrong with us as a species. We blow shit from one side of our lawn to the other side, and then the wind is just gonna blow it back,” she explains in the two-minute-long video, which was published on Thursday. If Blanchett’s gripe sounds familiar, it’s likely because you’ve heard her talk about it before. Last year, another TikTok composed of various clips of the Carol star ranting about her hatred of the lawn care tool made the rounds. Her vendetta goes back much, much further, however. Just how far? Let’s explore.
2007
Blanchett’s first on-record mention of leaf blowers was in a 2007 interview with W Magazine. If her hatred for leaf blowers was a person, they would be old enough to vote. (Ideally, for a candidate who will ban their use once and for all.) Citing ecological reasons, the Lord of the Rings actor told the outlet that leaf blowers “sum up everything that is wrong with the human race.”
2019
The actor’s distaste for the disruptive machines didn’t publicly surface again until an interviewer opened the floodgates during the press cycle for Blanchett’s 2019 film Where’d You Go, Bernadette. When asked about her “breaking point,” the actor had another opportunity to spread her anti-leaf-blower message: “I fly into—well, I think they’re quite rational—rages, but other people might think they’re irrational—about leaf blowers,” she responded. “If I see a leaf blower, I go from nought to a thousand. I just, I cannot. It’s all that is wrong with the human race. They drive me nuts. I’m like a barking dog, like I’m going ‘SQUIRREL!’ If I see a leaf blower, that’s it. I’m gone for the rest of the afternoon.”
On the red carpet for the film’s premiere, Blanchett was teasingly presented with a photo of a leaf blower, causing her to launch into an impassioned rant: “I could be here for three hours talking to you about leaf blowers. I hate them so much. You blow leaves from one side of the pavement to the other side of the pavement, only to have the wind blow them back in the first place. It’s like, what happened to the broom? I hate leaf blowers so much.”
2022
When Blanchett was a guest on Hot Ones in 2022, she took another moment to air her grievances. “Moving leaves from one place to another, only for them to be blown back again […] The gardeners […] they know that what they’re doing is stupid.”
2024
During a Cannes press conference for the 2024 film Rumours, an audience member asked Blanchett what makes her laugh. When she brought up leaf blowers, director Evan Johnson uttered, “This again?” And co-director Guy Maddin advised the audience to “Just Google ‘Cate Blanchett’ and ‘leaf blowers.’” The Don’t Look Up actor then mused, “Yeah, I mean, they make me laugh and cry. Laughing and crying is a really good state to be in, actually.”
