Cate Blanchett isn’t just an Academy Award-winning actress, she’s also the star of the Sparks’ eccentric new video, “The Girl is Crying in Her Latte.”
Videos by American Songwriter
The trippy video features the band’s Ron and Russel Mael perched on stools behind Blanchett, who’s dressed in a neon yellow suit with glasses and a pair of red headphones atop her head. When the chorus hits, she busts out a series of expressive dance moves and poses.
The Maels met Blanchett in 2022 in Paris, France at the César Awards and later reached out to her about being the star of the video. “When she first heard it, she said, ‘I’m laughing and I’m crying at the same time,’ and I thought that was a really apt comment about this song,” Russell told Variety about Blanchett’s reaction to the song. What initially started as a pitch for her to simply record clips of herself on her phone turned into a full-fledged video shoot in a Los Angeles studio two weeks before the video premiered.
“I love Russell and Ron,” Blanchett said on Variety’s Award Circuit podcast, adding that she “got on really well” with the brother duo after they met at the awards and “stayed in touch.” “I love the way they think. I love their sense of humor, and how they take the work seriously, but not themselves. You know, ‘the girl is crying in her latte,’ it’s so deep and shallow, simultaneously.”
“The Girl is Crying in Her Latte” is the lead single and title track off Sparks’ upcoming 26th studio album that will be released on May 26. It follows A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip, which was released in 2020 and hit No. 1 on the UK Independent Albums chart. To celebrate the album, the duo will embark on an international tour beginning in May that takes them across the U.S., Europe, and Japan. The tour launches on May 23 in Oxford, England, and concludes on July 25 in Tokyo, Japan. Visit the Sparks website for a full list of dates.
Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images
