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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Hannah Jane Parkinson

‘Everything that is wrong with the human race’: inside Hollywood’s bizarre war on the leaf blower

‘Turn that racket off!’ … Blanchett in 2015’s Cinderella.
‘Turn that racket off!’ … Blanchett in 2015’s Cinderella. Photograph: DISNEY/Allstar

Consider the great Hollywood feud. Perhaps Bette Davis and Joan Crawford’s mutual loathing comes to mind? Or Marlon Brando’s 40-year-old beef with Burt Reynolds? Maybe the more recent tensions between Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh? Well, let me tell you: these are absolutely nothing compared to Cate Blanchett and her indefatigable animus towards … the leaf blower. Seemingly every single leaf blower.

Truly, this is one of the greatest celebrity animosities of this century. The earliest extant Blanchett-rant on the subject is a W Magazine interview, way back in 2007, when she ambiguously characterised leaf blowers – a lot of fence-sitting here – as “everything that is wrong with the human race”.

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