From CanMag.com

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the story of Elizabeth I's reign, but many other characters get a chance to shine. Clive Owen makes Sir Walter Raleigh his own, and Abbie Cornish stands out as the queen's confidante, Bess. She serves the queen, but has her own personality.

"For me there was always a sense that Bess is very good at which she does," said Cornish. "Obviously, to be in that position. I always felt like the true Bess, she protected herself. I always felt that her inner child was kept underneath the corset. There were many dreams and thoughts that she had which I don’t think she freely expresses to the Queen. The Queen has a sense of them because she herself is human, but Bess maintains constantly around a Queen and so I guess for me there was a separation. Bess’s involvement with the Queen was first and foremost work, and second of all compassion and love. But there’s only a certain extent that you can give over to that love and compassion to someone else when ultimately at the end of the day they can behead you or send you off into the outer world, which at that point in time was a completely different life. So I think there was an attachment but also a sense of self."

Throughout the film, in good times and bad, Cornish and Blanchett enjoy a sharp banter in both political and personal matters. "Cate’s an incredible woman and an incredible actress first of all. She’s very focussed in what she does and I felt in working with her that she had this tremendous amount of work to do in relation to her own character and her own performance. She was always aware of everyone else around her and particularly for me, I felt there was a watchful eye over my character, over scenes and the dialogue and it was nice to have that there. So there was a very comfortable feeling from me towards Cate, both professionally and personally. And I think [director] Shekhar [Kapur] just did such an amazing job in expressing his thoughts on that relationship and encouraging exploration of that relationship because it’s so intricate and difficult. You can’t sum it up in one sentence, you really can’t. And so to have the ability to do that with people like Cate and Shekhar was just a pleasure."

Bess was a real historical figure, so Cornish did her homework. "I really wanted to know about the real Bess. I felt that it was very important to create some sense of connection to her and to life and it’s difficult because not an extensive amount is written about Bess but I gathered the bits that I could. We had an historian on board, and just questioning him about little things. About how do I stand when she walks in? Does she kneel? How far down does she bow? And all these little things I guess. But the most interesting thing, and the most creative insight for me into Bess came in a portrait. I found this portrait of her in a book which just pushed through the image and went straight through me. It’s difficult because there’s no real photographs of a person around that time so you have to rely on an artist’s interpretation. But there was something I felt was coming through this portrait and so I got it blown up really big. These people put it in my trailer and so I would see her when I came in, when I left, and I would check in with her."

The portrait may not have resembled Cornish, but it inspired her work. "Bess didn’t have blue eyes in the film, but [the portrait showed] these very blue, very open, almost ocean-like eyes. There was this slight smile on her face but the lips were pursed so here was a happiness and contentment, a sort of a givingness to the moment but a constriction and that was the profession I felt coming in. Then the open eyes and stuff and the dream, there was something about her that was dreaming of something outside of that moment. That I felt affected me."

Elizabeth: The Golden Age opens to theaters on October 12th.