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<\/p>\n Jessica Chastain is one of the finest actresses in the business. She projects intelligence, determination, and sensitivity in every role she plays. Recently, she has earned rave reviews for her stunning performance in the remake of Ingmar Bergman\u2019s Scenes From a Marriage<\/span>, which was released as a five-part limited series on HBO. In addition, her portrayal of the late American Televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes Of Tammy Faye<\/span> earned her this year\u2019s Oscar for Best Actress. The 44-year-old Jessica Chastain lives in a sprawling Victorian apartment overlooking Central Park in New York City together with her Italian nobleman husband, Count Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo 41, a fashion executive at Moncler. They have spent the past eight years together, and were married in June of 2017 in an exclusive ceremony held in Treviso, Italy. In 2018 they became parents of a baby girl, Giullietta Passi Chastain, born via a surrogate, and last year reportedly added a second child to their family, name undisclosed.<\/p>\n What made you want to play Tammy Faye? What stood out to you the most about Tammy Faye? Is this one of the more difficult or extreme roles you\u2019ve ever taken on? Tammy Faye was notorious for her heavy makeup. Do you think that was in some sense a way of hiding herself? You previously played a CIA agent in Zero Dark Thirty. Did your work in that film give you an idea for this kind of a female-driven action movie? You\u2019ve often spoken out about the need for films to present women in a way that demonstrates their strength and capabilities. Is The 355 part of that process? You\u2019re very conscious of women\u2019s roles in society.\u00a0 <\/span>In your limited series Scenes From a Marriage, you play a woman who earns more than her husband, which creates some issues in their marriage.\u00a0 <\/span>How do you reckon with that? Women are still faced with the issue of work vs family life and their role as mothers? You\u2019re married to a successful Italian businessman, Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, who comes from an aristocratic background. How do you feel you have found your own balance in your marriage? INTERVIEW: JAN JANSSEN (WENN.COM) \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/okpakistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/peakpx-1024x983.jpg\")
Now Chastain appears in a very different kind of role as a CIA operative in The 355<\/span>, a female-driven spy thriller. Directed by Simon Kinberg, the film co-stars Penelope Cruz, Lupito Nyong\u2019o, Diane Kruger, and Fan Bingbing. Chastain developed the project herself and does double duty as both star and producer.
\u201cI was on the jury at Cannes and I was having a conversation with my agent about how I was seeing all these films with male action ensembles,\u201d Chastain recalls. \u201cBut I had never seen a female action ensemble film that took itself seriously where it didn\u2019t make it appear that it was silly that women could be good at that kind of a job.
\u201cBut my experience on making Zero Dark Thirty<\/span> allowed me to discover how many women work in espionage and how they\u2019re often deployed in the field. Then I came up with a wish-list of who I thought were the best actresses working today and it took off!\u201d
It all makes for a rollicking adventure ride that Chastain hopes will be yet another film that shows how women can be just as capable as men even in territory commonly associated with James Bond, George Smiley, and Jack Ryan.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/okpakistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/image-1-1024x1024.jpeg\")
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<\/b>JESSICA CHASTAIN: <\/b><\/span>She was a very fascinating woman. She created three television networks, broadcasting networks. She hosted a ton of television every single day. She wrote books, she recorded songs, she was constantly working\u2026And I also think she wasn\u2019t properly recognised for those accomplishments because she lived very lavishly, and of course her husband went to jail for fraud.
But people forget that she herself was never charged\u2026And I also think that as a woman she was unfairly judged because she wasn\u2019t shy about spending her money. I get uncomfortable sometimes when we talk about women being paid for their business accomplishments as greedy, you know? Because the empire that she had created was very lucrative.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/okpakistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/jessica_chastain_in_givenchy_1-683x1024.jpeg\")
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<\/b>JC: <\/b><\/span>I really admire her for how she was so unafraid about talking about AIDS at a time when the U.S. government was trying to bury the issue and wouldn\u2019t even admit there was a crisis. The president [Ronald Reagan] wasn\u2019t even saying the word AIDS. But Tammy Faye believed that it was the duty of Christians not to make moral judgements and to embrace the people who were dying and suffering from the disease. She saved a lot of lives by alerting the public to AIDS when the government wasn\u2019t taking it seriously.
She was very open about addressing the issue and being true to her own view of what it meant to be a Christian by saying that Jesus loves everyone and that we have to follow that message. That\u2019s what I believe that Christianity is all about and what really impressed me about her\u2026 She would say, \u201cI love you.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>She loved everyone and she believed that everyone was deserving of God\u2019s love and grace\u2026and that was her message.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC:<\/b><\/span> For sure. It\u2019s the hardest. Also, singing. The day I went to do it, I tweeted something like: \u201cI am living off of bourbon and Throat Coat.\u201d Because I was so scared. I actually drank Throat Coat tea with whiskey while I was singing. I\u2019m not hardcore like that! But I was like, there\u2019s no way that I can be this nervous, and that was my \u201cget-ya-through-it\u201d recipe.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC:<\/b><\/span> No, just the opposite\u2026Her voice was so big, her bumblebee outfit that you saw her wearing all the time was so fabulous and so crazy. Her songs are all out there. She\u2019s doing kooky things all the time. So why would she be demure in her makeup? She had the fearlessness of a drag queen. She wanted to express herself \u2026 It was her being like, \u201cLook at me!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/okpakistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/HD-wallpaper-women-actress-jessica-chastain-768x1024.jpeg\")
Tell us about your character, Mace.
<\/b>JC: <\/b><\/span>She\u2019s an exceptionally gifted and intelligent CIA agent who can often go off the books and follow her own code and sense of what is right. She\u2019s someone in constant search of justice and that\u2019s what sets in motion the mission she\u2019s taken on, and where she goes out and brings on board the best female agents in the business to work alongside her.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC: <\/b><\/span>Yes. While preparing for that film I did a lot of research on the intelligence community and I realised how important women are in espionage because they\u2019re often on the front line working as field agents. And despite all this women are often underestimated in that community, even though they\u2019re highly adept at undercover ops, developing contacts, and obtaining top secret information that is the essence of most espionage work.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC: <\/b><\/span>Action films are very important to Hollywood because they often generate a lot of profits and they attract a lot of attention to the actors who work in those projects. If our film is successful, it\u2019s obviously going to pave the way for similar kinds of female ensemble films. Right from the very start of trying to get the film financed, I was thinking about how great it would be to make a film with female espionage agents who are incredibly capable, smart, and efficient at their jobs. I think it will help inspire a lot of young women\u2026
My goals and dreams for The 355<\/span> is that we just accept the fact that women are awesome and tough and badass. I\u2019m excited for society to start acknowledging what\u2019s happening in our world.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC: <\/b><\/span>Earning more than your husband and having more power than him \u2013 that shouldn\u2019t be something that surprises us or seems unusual\u2026I have many female friends who earn more than their male partners. Society is evolving in a direction where we women are being recognized for our intellectual capabilities.
This also changes the traditional corporate landscape because women are being treated more as equals who are entitled to earn the same kinds of salaries and enjoy the same kind of power as men in society. Not that there still isn\u2019t a long way to go.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC: <\/b><\/span>We\u2019re still dealing with the sense of guilt and the trap of feeling too masculine when we are successful or the guilt and anxiety that comes from when we are too dependent on our male partners when we are looking after children and staying home more. I hope that more and more women will be able to do both, have a successful career and also look after their children. And without feeling the guilt of feeling inadequate from trying to accomplish both.<\/p>\n
<\/b>JC:<\/b><\/span> I\u2019m very lucky because my husband always wants to celebrate my successes and is proud of my work, and I feel the same way about his accomplishments. This is how it should be: relationships in which the partner encourages you to take your place in the world, and celebrates you for who you are.
<\/span>The above comments by Jessica Chastain were made while she was promoting her new HBO limited series, Scenes From a Marriage, at the Venice Film Festival. With additional comments she made on the occasion of the world premiere of The Eyes of Tammy Faye at the Toronto International Film Festival and from a Dec. 5th Zoom chat for her new film, The 355. Her comments have been condensed and edited for length and clarity.<\/span><\/p>\n
PHOTOGRAPHS: WENN, SHUTTERSTOCK<\/p>\n![\"ok](\"https:\/\/okpakistan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Post-Bottom-Logo-e1561537977949.jpg\"){kind=logo}
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