I was invited to attend the after-party following last night’s Cate Blanchett‘s tribute at the Santa Barbara Int’l Film Festival. Naturally I felt it was fair and necessary to ask her about Dylan Farrow’s letter, published yesterday afternoon by N.Y. Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, accusing Woody Allen of having molested her at age 7. There’s obviously no connection between a 20 year-old family trauma and a recent creative collaboration, but the director-writer of Blue Jasmine and obviously the one most responsible for Blanchett’s Best Actress accolades (including a very real chance that she might win the Best Actress Oscar) was and is under intense fire. With The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg and Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone suggesting that Farrow’s letter could (however idiotically) work against Blanchett’s Oscar chances, I asked if she had a reaction. I tweeted her response a few minutes later. The Hollywood Reporter‘s Gregg Kilday ran a piece about her quote around midnight.

I thought it was semi-significant that Blanchett didn’t mention Allen in her thank-you remarks at the end of the SBIFF event. She discussed working with Allen in her q & a with Pete Hammond, but she only mentioned her Blue Jasmine costars when she stood at the lecturn. I would have played it the same way.