Cate Blanchett is already getting the Oscar nod for her role in the new Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine.  The film has been lauded by critics and praised by fans across the board.

Cate Blanchett recently revealed some little-known facts about herself, the role, and Woody Allen. Here are five things you probably didn't know.

Cate Blanchett has already won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2004 for her role as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator. Now, Cate, 44, has been tipped for f another Academy Award for her role in Blue Jasmine.

1) Woody Allen took just 45 seconds to audition her for the Blue Jasmine role

"I think it must be a record.", Cate said.

"He telephoned me in Sydney, we talked for 45 seconds and, he said, "Great, you want to do it. I'll see you in San Francisco."

That was fast.

2) Although she's wildly successful now, there was a time when Cate was too broke to even have a cup of coffee every day.

On being asked if there was ever a time when she had no money, Cate said, "Yes. When I came out of drama school I was in a shared house in Sydney."

"I literally had to ration my money so that I could have a coffee in a café every alternate day."

3) Cate's first job was in a retirement home.

"I worked in an old folks' home," Blanchett revealed. "I'd go after school and heat up the food the cook had left and serve it, talk to the patients and then clear up and wash up afterwards."

4) Now, with all that wild success, Cate likes to be stay out of the limelight as much as possible-she's interested in observing other people more than being observed.

"I guess I prefer to be quite private. It's a myth that actors are exhibitionists," Cate said.

"It's the research and working with other people that fascinates me."

We probably would prefer hanging out in an enormous house too, were we wildly successful.

5) In taking on a role, the character doesn't have to be likeable- but Blanchett tries to see the humanity anyway. Protagonists don't always have to be sympathetic, Cate points out.

About her Blue Jasmine character, Jasmine, Cate said

"A lot of what she says and does is shocking, narcissistic and unpalatable, but the thing that I hope humanises her is that she is someone who is desperately looking for her identity in other people.

I think her heart's in the right place."

5) However, getting the signature Woody Allen tragicomic (or comitragic) tone right was difficult.

Woody has this gift of being able to make us laugh at the most painful things and find the most serious things utterly absurd.

So the tone was a challenge," Cate said.