Oscar-winning Australian actor Cate Blanchett is used to studying hard to get into character for a lead film role.

Her award-winning portrayal of fictional German conductor, Lydia Tár, in 2022, was the result of months of watching YouTube videos of conductors and hanging out with them, learning to play the piano and speak German.

In preparation for playing Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator, she recalled in a Golden Globes interview that she “took a lot of cold showers, because she used to break the ice by going swimming … I took up tennis again and I started playing golf”.

Who could forget her portrayal of Bob Dylan (one of several actors) in the unconventional biopic, I’m Not There that earned her an Oscar nomination?

For her next big studio performance, Blanchett, 55, has taken fans by surprise after signing up for a video-game adaptation of Borderlands, in which she will play gun-toting space outlaw Lilith from planet Pandora, who is the leader of a crew on a deadly mission.

You guessed it, she prepared for the role in the only way a true Borderlands gamer would.

She says she “got absorbed in that world”.

“My thumbs can barely control a phone, but I bought a PS5 [PlayStation] and we played each other [her playwright husband Andrew Upton],” she told Empire magazine.

“I wanted to know the limits of the game and what fans loved about the character.

“I got really absorbed in that whole world. The cosplayers. The YouTube make-up tutorials.”

And when it came time to shoot, she says she wore the same costume every day, and slept in it “for four months”.

“You want to make it as close to the fantasies of the people who have played the game … but because it’s live action, you have to be able to move in it,” she said in a June 30 interview with the cast.

A National Institute of Dramatic Art graduate in 1992, Blanchett’s film debut was in Paradise Road in 1997, after spending years in theatre. 

She has gained wide acclaim for her work ranging from low-budget independent films to high-profile blockbusters.

After she moved to the UK Blanchett won several awards for playing the lead in Elizabeth including the Golden Globe for best actress (she was nominated for an Academy Award but lost out to Gwyneth Paltrow’s Shakespeare in Love).

She played Elf Queen Galadriel in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy and won an Oscar in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator in 2004.

She received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for playing a teacher having an affair with an underage student in Notes on a Scandal.

In 2007, she returned to the role that made her a star in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Her second Oscar came after Woody Allen cast her in the title role in Blue Jasmine.

‘This film could save your life’

Borderlands is a first for her but she says that was part of the appeal, and the “gun-slinging stuff was so much fun”.

“Crazy asks are usually the things I gravitate toward, the things I could never conceive of,” she said.

“I think there may have also been a little Covid madness – I was spending a lot of time in the garden, using the chainsaw a little too freely.

“My husband said, ‘This film could save your life’.”

For the uninitiated, the Borderlands video game – series 3 is out now – is set in a science-fiction western fantasy where the gamer plays the POV looter shooter (the franchise’s website says it defined the genre with over-the-top fight scenes).

Die-hard fans who have watched the movie trailer have made comparisons to the mateship star lord qualities of Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy starring Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana, which was a huge box office success.

“The combination of the two of us, it’s mixing Elizabeth and Hostel, Tar and Thanksgiving,” director Eli Roth tells Empire of Blanchett’s space outlaw skill set.

“You’ve seen her twirl a baton, but wait until you see her twirl a gun.”