How a cat became an integral part of Cate Blanchett's 'Disclaimer' performance

Cate Blanchett Disclaimer It turns out her role was much more than an epic portrayal of an acclaimed documentarian watching her life fall apart: she also learned how to debone a fish and tame cats.

It turns out that in Alfonso Cuarón's AppleTV+ thriller, characters Blanchett and Sacha Baron Cohen's animal friends are an integral part of the series' layered symbolism. The cast – including Blanchett, Baron Cohen, Kevin Kline, Louis Partridge, Leila George and HoYeon Jung – spoke to the audience after a screening of the first three episodes of the program at the BFI London Film Festival on Thursday.

The seven-part series follows acclaimed creative Catherine Ravenscroft (Blanchett) and her wealthy husband Robert (Baron Cohen), whose lives are turned upside down when a book bears their name The perfect stranger is sent to Catherine and – to her horror – reveals a secret of hers that she hoped had been long buried. At the same time, the couple is distracted by their disoriented son Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The widowed teacher who published the book (Kline) seeks revenge after the death of his son Jonathon (Partridge) and basks smugly in the glow of the fire he has ignited in Catherine's life.

It's hard to miss the appearances of a few secondary, non-human characters – the Ravenscrofts' cat, who regularly pops in and out of the Ravenscrofts' elegant London home Disclaimeris the central couple. In a crucial scene where Blanchett's character debones a sole, we see her trying to deal with the misbehaving cat who wants to make her life more difficult.

It may seem harmless – but Cuarón was very intentional about the cat, and Blanchett soon understood how important it was to the series.

“(I thought to myself): Why is the cat there? And then I realized,” Blanchett began. “I think in the recording I had to debone a fish – I was taught how to debone fish. My family ate quite a bit of fish during this shoot…. But then, just when I got the boning right, when we did a few takes, (Cuarón says), 'Put the cat in.'”

“By introducing an animal,” she turned to her director in conversation, “you have said exactly that you cannot control it.” There is something evil in your desire…. We believe we have to control our entire life, when in reality we are completely out of control. And everyone, we're so out of control in the world right now, and then when you introduce an animal into these really controlled environments, you've constantly organized chaos.”

“I thought that was a really interesting, really subtle way of constantly watching these people (in chaos).”

Cuarón half-joked: “It was incredible to see Cate suffer. She takes the cat with her, cooks, but never misses a beat when it comes to her character, behaving the way the character would. For me it was a joy.”

He continued: “I have to say, Cate broke the cat. In the end, the cat did what Cate wanted. The animal trainer was very upset because he said, “It took me three years to train this cat to go from A to B and now the cat does whatever it wants.” Blanchett then clarified that she is an animal lover home and reveals that she owns two cats, four dogs and six chickens.

As always, Cuarón and Blanchett took the opportunity to rave about each other's genius, with the former saying, “Cate's commitment as an executive was… we often see a lot of credits that are cosmetic in nature.” And Cate wasn't. She was involved in every single casting decision and every single moment.”

The cast was full of praise for it Roma And Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Director. “It often feels like you have to take a leap of faith when working with people,” Partridge said. “So yeah, (its) vote of confidence and just seeing how meticulous you are about everything…. It’s a luxury that you can’t afford in every job.”

That word — meticulous — came up often when the actors referred to Cuarón's creative approach. “You will see at the end of the show,” Blanchett added, “that Alfonso was absolutely meticulous and had a very clear vision.”

Disclaimer Premiering on AppleTV+ on October 11th.