Cate Blanchett to make transition to stage

LONDON, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Despite having five new films coming out next year, Australian actress Cate Blanchett is planning to alter her focus with a three-year stage work hiatus.

The 37-year-old has revealed that she will take three years off beginning in 2008 from making films in order to join her husband, screenwriter Andrew Upton, as co-artistic director at the Sydney Theatre Company, the Sunday Observer said.

Yet before the actress takes a break from the film industry, she will be featured in several new films, starting with the critically acclaimed drama "Babel."

Blanchett will then follow up her role in the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu-directed film with starring roles in the historical drama "The Good German" from Steven Soderbergh and Richard Eyre's "Notes on a Scandal."

The actress will also be seen reprising her role as Britain's Queen Elizabeth I in director Shekhar Kapur's sequel to "Elizabeth" and starring in Todd Haynes' film "I'm Not There."

Once her busy film schedule is complete, the Observer said that the versatile actress will join the Australian stage company for her self-imposed exile from the world of film.