Cate Blanchett talks 'Mrs. America' role, praises teachers amid coronavirus pandemic

Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is starring in the new FX series, "Mrs. America."

The actress who plays late conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, appeared live via video conference on "Good Morning America" Wednesday and described her buzzed-about role.

"She was a staunchly conservative mother of six from Alton, Illinois, who was an astonishingly brilliant grassroots organizer and really did mobilize a whole army of women who would identify as being traditional women or homemaker who felt marginalized by feminism," Blanchett said about Schlafly, who campaigned against ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment in the '70s.

"She was quite the force of nature."

Blanchett, who's also an executive producer of the series, said the cast and crew delved back into history to reveal something about the present.

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"I think we were looking at how polarized America has become particularly in the last four, five years and we wanted to reverse engineer about how we got here and how once again, women are feeling separate from one another in the wake of #MeToo," Blanchett said.

"We wanted to examine the equal and opposite movements to second-wave feminism, which was the traditional women's movement and to try and understand both sides of what were fears and concerns and challenges and perhaps find some common ground there because in the end, you know, we're all women -- no matter what our beliefs are."

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Blanchett is home in England with her kids whose ages range from 5 to 18.

"I feel blessed that my family, my four kids are here ... we're safe and well in the country," she said, adding she's been homeschooling. "I thought I was a patient human being, but a teacher I ain't."

"I have such a profound respect for teachers. I think we all should, " Blanchett added. "I hope we all understand that teachers really deserve a pay raise."

"Mrs. America" premieres exclusively today on FX on Hulu.