She became a star quickly, but she was not always lucky. She comes from a family almost below the poverty line and treats her work “like a proletarian”: she spends months preparing for roles in museums and libraries. And she prefers to go to the Oscar ceremony with her grandmother. Meeting with Jessica Chastain, who knows that the shortest way is up almost vertically.
Red-haired people seem a little frivolous to me. A little frivolous. And often happy. Only the last applies to Jessica Chastain: she is — really, really — in reality, just pleasing to the eye. And when she laughs, everything in her laughs — eyes, shoulders, small white arms, and a leg crossed over her leg, and funny ballet shoes with an imitation of an animal muzzle, and a bright green shirt, and white trousers with ruched cuffs, what something girly, kindergarten. She is clearly a naturally resilient person. But there is no frivolity in it at all.
By the way, she is ugly — have you noticed? Duck nose, pale skin, whitish eyelashes. But you didn’t notice.
I didn’t notice either. She is such an actress that anyone can be. She is pathetic, seductive, predatory, touching, a criminal, a victim, a goth in black leather and a maid in a crinoline. We’ve seen her as a rocker in Andres Muschietti’s Mama, as a villain in Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, as a CIA and Mossad agent in Katherine Bigelow’s Target One and John Madden’s Payback, as a ridiculous failed housewife in The Help. Tate Taylor, the grieving mother in Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, the madonna mother, the embodiment of selflessness in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, and finally Salome with her seduction and treachery.
It is impossible not to recognize it, it is impossible not to separate it from the background. And Chastain, sitting in front of me, has nothing to do with all this power — her acting gift, the ability to control our emotions, the ability to organize screen space around herself and at the same time be only part of the whole. And no frivolity. Vice versa, she takes full responsibility for herself — she starts our conversation on the record.
Jessica Chastain: Just don’t ask me how I became famous overnight. And how I felt when I walked the Cannes red carpet with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. After so many years of failures and unsuccessful trials. Don’t ask.
Psychologies: Why?
J. C.: Because… Why, everyone asks me this question — about my 2011, when six films at once, which were shot at different times, came out within six months. And they began to recognize me. You see, I was already 34, this is the age when other, more successful actresses think with fear: what’s next? I am no longer a girl, it is unlikely that I will survive as a romantic heroine … And will they want me now … in every sense (laughs). Including — and whether they will shoot. I was already 34. And I understood what was really valuable, and what was so, decor.
“I believe that the feeling of gratitude is the main feeling that a person should be able to experience”
When I was 25, my sister Juliet committed suicide. One year younger than me. We saw little before that — she had a fight with her mother, decided to live with our biological father — we only found out in high school that he was our father, in the birth certificate in the column «father» we have a dash. Her parents were teenagers when they got together, then her mother left her father … Juliet suffered from depression. Long years. And her father could not help her. She shot herself with his pistol in his house… She was 24 years old… We grew up together, and I couldn’t help her either.
It all turned me upside down: my ideas — about success, failure, money, career, prosperity, relationships, clothes, Oscars, that someone might consider me a fool … About everything. And I began to regard my life as a complete success. They didn’t take it into the picture — what garbage, but I work and earn money. Did he have another one? I’ll survive somehow, I’m alive.
But is this how you lower the bar?
J. C.: And I would call it humility. I could not recognize the approaching death, the abyss in front of the nearest person — why brag now? Why pretend that the size of the fee at least determines something? We must try to see more! The father died shortly after his sister’s suicide. I wasn’t at the funeral. Not because I hardly knew him, but because … You know, there is one extraordinary person in my life. This is my stepfather, Michael. He’s just a firefighter… No, not just.
He is a savior and savior by calling. And when he appeared in our house, for the first time I felt what calmness, security are. I was a child, eight years old. Before that, I never felt confident. With him in my life there was an absolute sense of security. Yes, we were sometimes evicted for late rent, yes, we often did not have money — after all, we had five children. And it even happened that I came home from school, and some person sealed the door of our house, looked at me with pity and asked if I wanted to take some of my things, well, maybe some kind of bear …
And still — I always knew that Michael would protect us, and therefore everything would be settled. And I didn’t go to my father’s funeral because I was afraid that I would offend my stepfather with this. And then, before the premiere of The Tree of Life, it was not important that I was in Cannes — although I am a terrible movie fan, and getting to Cannes also meant for me to see everything, everything that is shown there! — no, it was important that I was confused, did not know what to do on this staircase of the Palais des Festivals, and Brad and Sean took my hands. Helped the newcomer get used to it.
But your achievements are impressive: from a difficult childhood to the Cannes stairs and to the Oscars. There is something to be proud of.
J. C.: These are not only my achievements. They helped me all the time! In general, I look at the past as an endless chain of someone’s help. I was not well liked at school. I was red, freckled. I cut my hair in protest against school fashion almost bald, doll girls called me ugly. This is in the lower grades. But I was seven when my grandmother took me to the play. It was Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. And that’s it, I disappeared, got infected with the theater. At 9 I went to the theater studio. And I found my people. The theater helped me to become myself, and my peers were different there, and teachers. Now I am familiar to all children who have problems, and to my brother and sister — they recently graduated from school — I say: school is a random environment, a random environment. Find yours.
“There are no problems in communication, there is communication with the wrong people. And there is no problematic environment, there is only not yours «
There are no problems in communication, there is communication with the wrong people. And there is no problematic environment, just not yours. Then, after school, my grandmother convinced me that there was nothing to think about earning, you should try to become an actress. I owe all these Oscar nominations and red carpets to my grandmother! I’m the first in our big clan to go to college! Grandma convinced me that I could. And she went with me to New York, to the famous Juilliard, where the competition was 100 people per seat.
And again, I would not see Juilliard if Robin Williams, who once graduated from it himself, had not established a scholarship for low-income students. They helped me all the time. So I now say that I have a sixth sense. This is a feeling of gratitude. True, I believe that this is the main feeling that a person should be able to experience — before any friendships, loves and affections. When Williams committed suicide, I kept thinking how I never met him, didn’t thank him personally …
In fact, of course, I did not want to impose. But I still found a way to thank him. Those same scholarships for students. I regularly contribute money to the fund. And after Williams’ death, I found an organization dedicated to suicide prevention. She has a great name — To Write Love on Her Arms («Write» love «on her arms.» — Approx. ed.). Those who work there are trying to return love to people … I support them. Thank you in different ways.
But you don’t want to say that achievements don’t matter to you!
J. C.: Yes, of course they have! I just don’t want to be a red carpet character. I always wanted to be perceived as an actress — through the characters, and not through who I date and that I am, you see, a vegan. You see, in Hollywood, the highest point of an actress’s career is a collective «catwoman», the heroine of some comic book movie or a «Bond girl». I am not against Bond girls, but I do not expect such proposals. I’m not a Bond girl, I’m Bond! I’m on my own, I’m the hero of my movie.
After Juilliard, I signed a contract with a company that produced series, and starred in episodes in all their shows. I didn’t expect luxury deals. I was afraid — this is a childhood fear, of course — that I would not be able to pay the rent. I earned six thousand a month, after all the deductions there were three, an apartment in Santa Monica cost 1600, but I always rented it in half with someone, so it turned out 800. And I had two envelopes — “For an apartment” and “ For food».
From each fee, I put aside money there, they were inviolable. Until recently, I drove a Prius, which I bought then, in 2007. I can live and act rationally. And I can also appreciate what I have now. You know, I bought an apartment in Manhattan — the price, of course, is fantastic, this is Manhattan, but the apartment is modest. And I wanted to have just that a modest apartment — a human scale. A scale comparable to me. Not 200-meter mansions.
You speak like a person who is generally pleased with himself. Do you rate yourself as «good»?
J. C.: Yes, I have made some progress along the way. I was such a hysteric, such a bore! Somewhere in me was the confidence that I could and should be the best. And so it must take on the most. If it weren’t for my friends… That’s when in Cannes, when I was there for the first time with the «Tree of Life», I was terribly worried. Well, I didn’t know how I would walk along this red carpet … From the hotel we drove to the Palais des Festivals in the car, slowly, slowly, it’s a ritual there.
With me was Jess Wexler, my best friend and classmate. I kept moaning that horror, horror, horror, I would step on the stairs on my hem, next to Brad I would look like an idiot — with my ridiculous 162 cm height — and that I was about to vomit. Until she said, “Damn you, go ahead! Just open the door — at least the press will have something to write about! Which brought me to my senses. You see, when you maintain relationships with people who have seen you in the worst conditions, there is hope to learn the truth about yourself. That’s why I keep them, mine.
Rumor has it that you don’t romance fellow actors. This is true?
J. C.: Rumor — but true! Yes, I don’t date actors. Because relationships for me are complete openness, ultimate sincerity. And with the actor … There is a possibility of confusion — what if he plays with you too?
Is there any danger on your part?
J. C.: And I never play at all. Even in the movies. I was hoping it was noticeable.