Cate Blanchett remembers the moment well.
It was her first day on the set of Blue Jasmine. She had just completed her first scene and looked over to director Woody Allen for feedback.
What she heard came as a shock.
"It's awful. You're awful," the bespectacled Allen told Blanchett.
He wasn't joking.
He didn't like how Blanchett was portraying the lead character in his film, a New York socialite who begins the movie as a Chanel-clad, Birkin bag-carrying trophy wife and ends up well, you'll have to watch the movie to find out.
Blanchett tried the scene a second time.
"Awful," Allen repeated.
The director may have been blunt, but his words did the trick.
On Monday AEDT, despite competing against four of Hollywood's finest - Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Sandra Bullock and Amy Adams - Blanchett is expected to be named winner of the best actress Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards ceremony at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre.
It will be Blanchett's second Oscar win after claiming a supporting statuette in 2005 for playing Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.
If the 44-year-old does win, it will secure her place as Australia's greatest acting talent.
While Geoffrey Rush, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Heath Ledger and Peter Finch have all won one acting Oscar, and Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Rachel Griffiths, Judy Davis and Toni Collette have nominations but zero wins, Blanchett, with two trophies, will be in a class of her own.
Since 1999 Blanchett has been nominated for Oscars six times, scoring a double nomination in 2008 for playing Bob Dylan in I'm Not There and Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.
Her resume shows her ability to morph into almost any character.
Not only can she play a man, monarch or a movie star as well-known as the stuttering Hepburn, but she has portrayed an albino, skinhead and elf in other films and mastered accents including Russian, Italian, American and German.
Blue Jasmine was Blanchett's first starring big screen role since taking a break from Hollywood in 2008.
She took up the role of co-artistic director with husband Andrew Upton at the Sydney Theatre Company that year and also welcomed her third child, son Ignatius.
But Blanchett is now back on the big screen in a major way, with at least seven films to be released in the next two years.
Hollywood missed her.
"When we're talking about Blue Jasmine, we're really talking about Blanchett, who - and this is no exaggeration - gives one of the greatest screen performances of the past 10 years," San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick LaSalle wrote back in August.
"To say that she is Oscar worthy would not do her justice, not when we remember what actually wins Oscars.
"Blanchett's performance is one for the books."
For Blanchett, her latest Oscar nomination was a surprise.
"It is always a thrill," Blanchett said at the recent Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills.
"Particularly because I have been away from the film industry for so long while working for the Sydney Theatre Company.
"It is nice to think I have a film career to return to."
Don't be surprised if Blanchett, in her Oscar acceptance speech, thanks Allen for telling she was awful.
CATE BLANCHETT - THE FACTS
1999 - Nominated - Best Actress - Elizabeth
2005 - Won - Supporting Actress - The Aviator
2007 - Nominated - Supporting Actress - Notes on a Scandal
2008 - Nominated - Best Actress - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
2008 - Nominated - Supporting Actress - I'm Not There
2014 - TBA - Best Actress - Blue Jasmine
