Cate Blanchett as half of “Simon & Kate”

In what will most assuredly give comfort to aspiring performers everywhere, you’ll be highly amused to know that Cate Blanchett began her career singing silly songs in the Melbourne University Law Revue show in her native Australia. “Weird Love Song” certainly lives up to its name in the “Red Faces” segment of the long-running Australian variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday (1971-1999). The segment itself seems to owe a great deal to The Gong Show or, for all we know about Australian television here in the United States, it could be the other way around. Here’s the celebrated Ms. Blanchett as part of the duo “Kate and Simon.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHREdO9-l5w

You may not care much for the song (“I wish I was your cigarette, smoked on through your lips/killing you softly with my tar and seeping out your nostrils”), but what’s undeniable is the vocal prowess of Ms. Blanchett. Perhaps when she makes her Broadway debut this fall in The Present, an adaptation of an early Chekhov play by her husband Andrew Upton, she’ll turn up at a few theatre benefits, or maybe at 54 Below, and reconnect with her singing roots. I think the kid has got potential. She could be big.

P.S. Ms. Blanchett’s off beat comic sensibility from her university days has not, apparently, been dulled by fame. Perhaps you missed her cameo in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Hot Fuzz. There’s a tiny bit more than this clip. But not much.

Bottom line: keep your sense of humor at all times. But don’t listen to me. Take it from two-time Oscar winner and still undiscovered novelty song chanteuse Cate Blanchett.