Jessica Michelle Chastain is an American actress and producer. Known for primarily starring in films with feminist themes, she has received a variety of accolades including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She made her professional stage debut in 1998 as Shakespeare’s Juliet. She became a recurring guest star in several television series, and took on roles in several stage productions. She then made her film debut at age 31 in the drama Jolene (2008).
From there she starred in Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015), It Chapter Two (2019), A Most Violent Year (2014), Miss Sloane (2016), Molly’s Game (2017), and the television miniseries Scenes from a Marriage (2021). She went on to portray Tammy Faye Bakker in the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), in which she won an Academy Award for Best Actress. Also she played most recently Tammy Wynette in the miniseries George & Tammy (2022).
Chastain also has her own production company called Freckle Films, which was created to promote diversity in film. She is vocal about mental health issues, as well as gender and racial equality. Chastain identifies as a feminist, and has often spoken out against the discrimination faced by women and minorities in Hollywood. She wrote an essay on gender imbalance in the industry for The Hollywood Reporter. She advocates for greater gender balance on movie sets, including more women on film crews and in positions of power.
She is very active on social media where she hopes to “amplify the voices” of victims of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry. In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time’s Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination. She also featured alongside several Hollywood celebrities in a theatrical production of The Children’s Monologues, in which she performed a monologue as a thirteen-year-old girl who is raped by her uncle. The event raised funds for Dramatic Need, a charity that helps African children pursue a career in the arts.
Now Jessica Chastain will return to Broadway theatre in the play A Doll’s House, which will run for 16 weeks at the Hudson Theatre. Most recently in an interview with Stephen Colbert, Chastain spoke on her love of theatre and how much it means to her…
Email: neill@outloudculture.com
