Cate Blanchett reveals battle to get more than four hours sleep a night as she balances her Hollywood career with getting up at 5am to feed her chickens and take a cold-water plunge

Published: 00:00, 5 August 2026 | Updated: 00:35, 5 August 2026 They say the most successful people achieve more by breakfast than the rest of us do in an entire day. And that certainly seems true of Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, who gets up at 5am every morning and manages to feed her chickens, walk the dogs, take a cold-water plunge and do the school run – all before starting work. But the Australian actress's early starts, coupled with her 'love of late evenings', means 'the wheels are constantly falling off' due to her lack of sleep, she has said. Ms Blanchett, 57, who is mother to Dashiell, 24, Roman, 22, Ignatius, 18, and 11-year-old Edith, splits her time between her East Sussex manor house and her clifftop house in Cornwall. And it seems it's her decades spent working across both film and theatre that has led to her burning the candle at both ends. 'I suppose it's years and years in the film industry, which is all early starts,' she told Harper's Bazaar of her intense morning routine, as she posed for a quirky, avant garde new shoot. Cate Blanchett, 57, gets up at 5am every morning and manages to feed her chickens, walk the dogs, take a cold-water plunge and do the school run – all before starting work But the Australian actress' early starts, coupled with her 'love of late evenings', means 'the wheels are constantly falling off' due to her lack of sleep, she has said The September issue of Harper's Bazaar UK is on sale from August 6 'But I'm also a creature of the theatre, so I love late evenings – the moment when everyone else goes to bed and I've got the house to myself. '[But] I did have a hard word with myself about a year ago and said, 'You really need more than four hours [of sleep]' The wheels are constantly falling off. Constantly.' In one shot, taken by photographer Emma Summerton, Ms Blanchett can be seen reclining on a red and white striped lilo while wearing a dramatic velvet Stella McCartney dress with a large bejewelled heart bodice from the English brand's winter 2026 collection. The dress is stitched with 'lead-free crystals' which the fashion label says are 'safer for communities, the environment and all our fellow creatures' – making it a likely draw for the eco-conscious actress. She wore dark sunglasses and black stilettos with her hair curled in ringlets. Ms Blanchett, who won Oscars for The Aviator in 2004 and Blue Jasmine in 2014, recently founded not-for-profit organisation, RSL Media, an online register where creatives can declare their consent for their work to be used by AI. She is also gearing up for her run later this month in the National Theatre's production of Electra/Persona, in which she will alternate roles with actress Nina Hoss. And amid her hectic work schedule she is still negotiating parenting her children, the youngest of which is learning how to navigate beauty standards and technology. '[She is] on the cusp of all that stuff, but you have to keep the door to conversation open,' she said. 'They'll sense if you're coming to control or curate their relationship to their friends or the digital world.' She said of allowing her children screentime: '[I ask them] why do you need it? What are you doing that you can't do with a pen and paper? 'I try to have respectful arguments with my kids and explain my point of view.' Ms Blanchett, who was a vocal advocate of the #MeToo movement when it took off in 2017, said she feels it has now been 'rolled back' and 'discredited' while women have still not achieved equality in the industry. 'I suppose it's years and years in the film industry, which is all early starts,' she told Harper's Bazaar of her intense morning routine, as she posed for a quirky, avant garde new shoot 'But I'm also a creature of the theatre, so I love late evenings – the moment when everyone else goes to bed and I've got the house to myself', she said Ms Blanchett, who is mother to Dashiell, 24, Roman, 22, Ignatius, 18, and 11-year-old Edith, splits her time between her East Sussex manor house and her clifftop house in Cornwall And amid her hectic work schedule she is still negotiating parenting her children, the youngest of which is learning how to navigate beauty standards and technology 'We were at an exciting point', she said 'But we've never reached equality of pay, and not only has MeToo been rolled back, and super-quickly discredited, but there's a conversation in one of the biggest democracies in the world [the US] about women not having the right to vote because of household voting.' The hard-working actress is also on the Earthshot Prize Council, which works to find solutions to climate change through technology, and praised founder Prince William. '[He's been] an extraordinary leader, very hands-on in a consistent and practically engaged way,' she said. She said he'd clearly 'inherited' the interest from his father King Charles and had 'grown up with it'. The September issue of Harper's Bazaar UK is on sale from August 6.