It is no surprise on the day Cate Blanchett is named a recipient of a Queen's Birthday honour she is up for a Tony Award half a world away under the bright lights of New York's Broadway.
Blanchett, if major awards and nominations are the benchmark, is Australia's greatest actor, with two Oscar wins from seven nominations, three Golden Globe trophies, three Screen Actors Guild awards and three BAFTA wins.
Melbourne-born Blanchett was honoured on Monday with the Companion of the Order of Australia for not only her "eminent service to the performing arts as an international stage and screen actor", but for being "a role model for women and young performers, and as a supporter of humanitarian and environmental causes".
The 48-year-old mother-of-four, married to playwright Andrew Upton, has divided her family life and remarkable film and stage career with roles as a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and as an honorary life member for the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Blanchett has also been a crusader for women in Hollywood.
She famously proclaimed on stage while accepting her best actress Oscar in 2014 for Blue Jasmine: "The world is round, people!"
"Perhaps those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films with women at the centre are niche experiences - they are not," Blanchett said.
Blanchett can add to her extraordinary trophy cabinet at New York's Radio City Music Hall with a Tony Award (Monday 10am AEST) for best lead actress in a play for The Present, a Sydney Theatre Company update of Anton Chekhov's Platonov penned by Upton.
Blanchett's first Oscar win was in 2005 for The Aviator while her nominations were for Elizabeth, Notes on a Scandal, I'm Not There, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Carol.
