Cate Blanchett Keeps Delivering

(CBS)  In 2004, Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for her portrayal of Oscar-winner Katherine Hepburn in "The Aviator."

Some say that she might win again this year and has received a Golden Globe nomination for her role in "Notes on a Scandal"

Blanchett consistently appears in critically acclaimed movies. She starred opposite Brad Pitt in "Babel" and in "Notes on a Scandal" she stars with Judi Dench.

"Well, they are good roles," she told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "I mean, I sort of can't join in the conversation when people say there's no good roles for women."

In "Notes on a Scandal" Blanchett plays a teacher who has an affair with a 15-year-old student. Blanchett's character, Sheba Hart, and Dench's character, Barbara Covett, are close friends at work and their relationship becomes incredibly intense.

Blanchett said the film isn't really about the illicit affair but about the "world of loneliness that draws these two women together." Covett constructs a Machiavellian plan for Hart's demise.

"I think the problem is that Sheba, who I play, underestimates Barbara enormously and once Barbara knows her secret then she's done for," Blanchett said.

The affair and the cover-up cause a massive upheaval. Blanchett said that playing Hart was one of the most difficult roles of her career.

"I think, morally, I pride myself on not judging a character and patronizing an audience and leaving the notion open to them. But the whole notion of sleeping with a 15-year-old boy, or any child underage, I found difficult," she said.

Blanchett said she had to come to understand Hart's loneliness, even though she appears to be happily married with a houseful of children. That was the only way she could identify with the choices Hart made.

"The odd thing is she's married to an older man and almost been outside of her age group," Blanchett said. "She's been an adolescent most of her life so once I understood it as being a very destructive woman who wanted to blow her world apart."

Blanchett also stars in the black and white film "The Good German," opposite George Clooney. The film is set in Berlin after the second World War and Clooney's character, an American journalist, becomes involved in the murder investigation of his former mistress and driver.

In order to understand "the high style" German actresses from the 1940s used, Blanchett said director Steven Soderbergh had her watch old films.

She is also starring in a reprisal of "Elizabeth" called "The Golden Age." The movie explores the relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh.