‘She traveled even less than George Bush,’ said Cate Blanchett, star of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, making a political comment in stark contrast to the philosophical tone dominating the news conference for the film, the second part of a planned trilogy begun with Elizabeth in 1998.

Blanchett reprises her role as Queen Elizabeth I of England who, as monarch during much of the 16th century, skillfully navigated the religious contretemps of the time, the focus of much of the plot of Golden Age.

In this stunning drama — in which Philip II of Spain dispatches his armada to dethrone Elizabeth in favor of her Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart — Elizabeth would have been in even more danger than today’s U.S. president, had she traveled often abroad.

Along with Blanchett, the conference included director Shekhar Kapur and actors Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush and Abbie Cornish, who play Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Walsingham and lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton, respectively.

Asked what he intends to portray in the trilogy, Kapur said Elizabeth ‘was about power. This one was much more about absolute power and being divine. The third one is about –‘

‘Being old,’ interrupted Blanchett, which drew a laugh.

‘It’s about,’ continued Kapur, ‘becoming old, average… because you’re going to die and everybody dies.’

If the armada had succeeded, Kapur added, his country, India, might have been colonized by Spain rather than England.

Blanchett offered many insights about the queen she inhabits masterfully onscreen. Reflecting on a scene in which Elizabeth says her life is lived as if behind a wall of glass, Blanchett remarked ‘it’s… an internal film,’ and — the grandeur of the spectacle of a monarch leading troops to war notwithstanding — it’s about life unfolding within a castle.

She says the intensity of each day, the navigating of a fine line between life and death ‘in every moment is very important.’

Kapur conceded the details of history were less important to him than exploring the ‘underlying sense of the mythology of life.’

The actors praised the strong script by Michael Hirst and William Nicholson, the cinematography by Remi Adefarasin, the daring of makeup and wardrobe craftspeople and Kapur’s ability to incite them to take tremendous risks as actors.

‘I constantly felt like I was… at the edge of a cliff and that Shekhar was… going to push me over,’ related Cornish, adding she was also certain Kapur would catch her if she fell.