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Cate Blanchett's rise to the throne

But after her Oscar-nominated performance in Elizabeth, she has become a household name and looks set to thrill London audiences in David Hare's Plenty which opened at the Albery Theatre on Tuesday.

The Australian actress is the latest in a line of top film stars including Nicole Kidman and Kevin Spacey, to take to the stage in a production by the Almeida Theatre Company.

Directed by Jonathan Kent, she plays the lead in the first revival of Plenty. The play is considered to by many to be British playwright David Hare's most ambitious work.

It follows the disillusionment of the central character Susan Traherne through World War II France to post-war London.

Career 'suicide'

But the actress was warned of career suicide when she by-passed Hollywood to take the role.

She told the Telegraph magazine: "There were people in Australia who called my agent and said, 'What are you doing putting her in a play for six months? This is absolute suicide,' and I just thought, 'oh shut up'."

Instead, Cate said she was thrilled to take the part.

"I have a sense that a template exists for actors of my age and hair colour, that we have to do a certain thing," said the actress. "I'm quite bolshy about that. But I'm not doing this in reaction to other people's ideas. It's just an extraordinary opportunity to perform in an extraordinary play."

But this role is not a surprising choice for Blanchett who began her rollercoaster career on the stage.

After leaving university where she was studying Economics and Fine Arts, the Melbourne-born actress went on to pursue a career in acting at Sydney's prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art.

It was here she took the lead in the Greek tragedy Electra and just a few months later she landed her first major role, opposite fellow Australian Geoffrey Rush, in the Sydney Theatre Company's 1993 production of David Mamet's Oleanna.

This role won her the first of many accolades, the Sydney Theatre Critics' Best Newcomer Award.

Blanchett continued in the Australian theatre, winning critical acclaim for her roles in productions of Sweet Pheobe, Hamlet, The Tempest, and The Seagull.

The move to film

In 1997 her film career took off, with her appearance in Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road and the Australian film, Thank God He Met Lizzie.

It was while shooting the title role as Lizzie that she met script-writer Andrew Upton, whom she married a year later.

But it wasn't until her role alongside Ralph Fiennes in Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda later that year, that Hollywood really began to notice Cate Blanchett.

The film was not a huge success, but alerted movie executives to Blanchett's talent and landed her the major ground-breaking role in Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth.

Conquering Hollywood

Although Kapur confessed that he'd never heard of Blanchett before the castings, he admitted to being "blown away" by footage of the actress in Oscar and Lucinda and cast her as the strong-willed young queen.

"Apart from her breathtaking beauty, here was an actress of indomitable strength who was perfect for this character," said the director.

For Cate too, the part as Elizabeth, who she described as "an extraordinary woman, so full of passion and intensity", was "a dream role".

And the role certainly worked magic for Blanchett, who won a Golden Globe, British Film Critics' Award, Chicago Film Critics' Award, an Oscar nomination and a Best Actress BAFTA for her trouble.

With parts in the current big-seller, An Ideal Husband, the soon to be released Pushing Tin by director Mike Newell and Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley, Blanchett's reign looks set to last.

But despite her success, the actress maintains a relaxed attitude to the future.

"I've got a very ambivalent relationship to acting" said Blanchett in a recent interview.

"It's sort of a day-by-day, month-by-month thing. If I'm lucky enough for this run of good luck to continue, then I'll probably keep doing it."

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