Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett lost her cool during an interview on The Project on Wednesday night to promote her latest film.

In an attempt at humour, Channel Ten reporter Jonathan Hyla asked Blanchett a bizarre series of questions, but she became visibly irritated at his interviewing style.

At one stage, Hyla, referring to the Russian blue that Blanchett's character keeps, cheekily asked: "How were you able to get that cat to do what you wanted [it] to do on a leash?

"I tried to put my girlfriend's cat on a leash and it just never works for me," he added.

It all became too much for Blanchett, who was trying to plug her Disney film Cinderella. 

"That's your question? That's your f---ing question?" she shot back.

Having already told Hyla they should "start over", the exchange ended in a cringeworthy manner, with Blanchett clearly unhappy about Hyla's hijacking of the interview.

"One of us has got to do our job," Blanchett said of his attempt to ask questions specifically about the movie.

She went on to discuss the on-screen chemistry of Cinderella stars Lily James and Richard Madden, which she described as "amazing".

Earlier, before things got too awkward, Hyla tried to break the ice.

"I was going to bring like a six pack of beer," he said. "You seem like the type of person that we should just crack open a beer and just have a chat."

But Blanchett was not particularly impressed, bluntly replying: "This date is not going well, I do not drink beer."

With his back against the wall, Hyla asked what he could have brought to the interview to break the ice, to which Blanchett replied "a potato vodka" made in Devon.

With awkwardness at an all-time high and trying to fathom what had just transpired, the 45-year-old actress offered a "nice to meet you" to Hyla, but one can't help but feel her tone of voice was more sarcastic than anything else.

The Project panel member Gretel Killeen thought the pair were simply "playing hard to get".