Cate Blanchett feels she has to fight for the right to be an artist while in Australia

Cate Blanchett. Pic/AFP

Hollywood star Cate Blanchett feels the need to "constantly justify" her career in her native Australia.

The actress said she hates strangers asking her what she does for a living when she's in Down Under because she doesn't think her craft is "celebrated" in the way it is in the UK and US, where she spends a lot of her time, reports aceshowbiz.com.

"The worst thing for us as an actor in Australia is getting in the back of the cab and a cabbie asking 'What do you do?' Because you think, 'Oh, God ...,' " she said, according to the Courier Mail newspaper, during an event at the Roslyn Packer Theatre at the Sydney Theatre Company -- which she and husband Andrew Upton ran from 2008 to 2011.

"You're constantly having to fight for the space or to justify the fact that you have the right to actually be an artist in Australia," she stated. "But yet overseas, our culture is celebrated and sung and praised but we don't often do it internally. We don't often know what we have here. And living and working overseas, I can see absolutely objectively what we have here."

The 54-year-old actress admitted promoting homegrown stories, such as her new movie 'The New Boy' -- which follows an Indigenous youth with supernatural powers set in outback Australia during World War II -- is a priority for her.

Cate said, "Any chance I have to amplify that and to find ways for that work to get out overseas and be celebrated, but also to be celebrated here, is deeply important to me."

Last month, the Oscar-winning star caused a stir when she joined sparks on stage at Glastonbury to dance to their song 'The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte'. But the actress insisted she had no idea the performance would be such a talked-about moment and insisted nothing about it was planned.

Talking about the footage taking the internet by storm, she said, "Oh, did it? Well, that's exciting. I love Glastonbury. I'd known Sparks for a while now and I was in video and they were going to Glastonbury and I was going Glastonbury so they said, 'would I?' And I went 'Why not?' Everything was made up. Everything was on the fly."

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