Cate Blanchett's new movie, "Notes on a Scandal", is like "Lolita" with the sexes reversed.

Blanchett plays a married schoolteacher, Sheba, who has an affair with a 15-year-old student. Her shameful secret is discovered by an older colleague, Barbara (Judi Dench), a sardonic, misanthropic diarist who harbours her own passion for Sheba. The amorous crosscurrents threaten to destroy both their lives.

I spoke to Blanchett this week at a Manhattan hotel, where the slender 37-year-old Australian actress was staying during a promotional stop. She also has two other movies — "The Good German" and "Babel" — currently playing in theatres.

Question: What kind of research did you do for your character?

Reply:>Before embarking on this I'd see headlines in the news and think, "Those poor people", because irreparable damage is done to the child involved, the person who perpetrates it and the families of both. And there's a media circus surrounding it because it's so salacious. But from a dramatic point of view, you have a field day from the fallout.

QuestionB>You manage to give a well-rounded account of your character, who doesn't come off as a predator; actually, she's seduced by the boy. She finds herself swept away by this dangerous, unethical relationship.

ReplIt's vital not to invest your own morality in the portrait you are painting of somebody. You are not playing for sympathy, nor are you laying a heavy-handed judgment on the character. That's for the audience to find and decide for themselves. I was surprised by the depth of my own moral repugnance to what Sheba does, but it was important for me to allow her gloriously flawed complexity to exist and show other facets.

Questi What was it like to work with Judi Dench?

Re: The great thing you see within a minute of being on the set with Judi is that her technique is so polished, superlative and fearless, yet so invisible. She makes it look effortless. In the hands of another actress, the Machiavellian and vampiric lesbian quality of her character could have been one-dimensional. But she invested it with such pathos and humanity that you've got a complete tragic portrait of a very lonely woman.

Quesn: The film says something about the nature of friendships. So many are based on who's superior and who's inferior.

ly: We all think of ourselves as selfless heroes in our own personal narratives. But we're also the villains, though we don't like to characterise ourselves that way. I think both characters, Sheba and Barbara, underestimate each other.

Quion: In general, how do prepare your roles? They are so chiselled and unique.

stion: Did you channel Marlene Dietrich in "The Good German", Steven Soderbergh's film noir tribute.

Reply: Look, Marlene Dietrich channels Marlene Dietrich. I looked at a lot of German actresses from the 1940s, like Hildegard Knef. I'm also a great fan of Ingrid Bergman and watched "Notorious" about a 1,001 times.