Cate Blanchett criticises ongoing male-dominated film sets at Cannes 2026 talk
The Oscar winner highlights ongoing gender imbalance on sets, citing a 10-to-75 women-to-men ratio
Cate Blanchett has criticized the film industry’s ongoing gender imbalance and suggested that the momentum of the #MeToo movement has faded far too quickly.
Speaking during a conversation at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival with moderator Didier Allouch, the two-time Oscar winner reflected on both progress and setbacks since the movement gained global attention.
“There are a lot of people with platforms who are able to speak up with relative safety and say this has happened to me, and the so-called average woman on the street is saying #MeToo. Why does that get shut down?” Blanchett said.
“What [the movement] revealed is a systemic layer of abuse, not only in this industry but in all industries, and if you don’t identify a problem, you can’t solve the problem.”
Blanchett, who served as Cannes jury president in 2018 during the height of #MeToo, said she still observes a significant imbalance on film sets.
“I’m still on film sets and I do the headcount every day, and it is still… there’s 10 women and there’s 75 men every morning,” she said.
“I love men, but what happens is the jokes become the same. You just have to brace yourself slightly… it just gets boring for everybody when you walk into a homogeneous workplace.”
She added that the lack of diversity can directly affect creative work and workplace culture, arguing that repeated patterns of imbalance remain deeply embedded in the industry.
Her remarks come amid wider discussions at Cannes, where actor Julianne Moore also recently addressed gender disparities on film crews, recalling how uncommon it was earlier in her career to see women in technical roles.
Blanchett has long been a vocal advocate for gender equality in cinema. In 2018, she led a women’s march up the Cannes steps alongside dozens of women in the industry, highlighting the historic underrepresentation of female filmmakers at the festival.
“Women are not a minority in the world, yet the current state of the industry says otherwise,” she said at the time, calling for sustained structural change across all areas of filmmaking.