Early life and background

Chastain was born on March 24, 1977, in a small town near Sonoma, California. Her father, Michael Monasterio (died 2013), was a rock musician, and her mother Jerri Hastey (née Chastain), is a vegan chef. Her parents were both teenagers when they gave birth to her, and Chastain, while reticent to publicly discuss this aspect of her childhood, was estranged from Monasterio and has claimed that no father is listed on her birth certificate. She had a younger sister, Juliet, from her mother's relationship with Monasterio, but following years of drug abuse, Juliet committed suicide in 2003. Chastain has a half-brother from her mother's side and two half-sisters from her father's side. Chastain was raised in Sacramento, California, by her mother and stepfather, Michael Hastey, a fireman. She considers her stepfather to be "one of the greatest people" she knows and has said that he was the first person to make her feel secure. She shares a close bond with her maternal grandmother, Marilyn, whom she credits as someone who "always believed in me". Speaking about her childhood, Chastain has said:

"I didn't grow up with a lot of money, and we were evicted a couple times when I was a child. One time, I even came home from school and there was someone locking our doors. And he felt super guilty, and he asked me, 'do you want to go in and grab some things?' I always had this fear of being homeless. I decided to become an actor because I grew up without money, so I knew I could live without money. But I always had this thing of, I'm not going to be able to pay my rent."

As a student at the El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento, Chastain struggled academically. She was a loner and considered herself a misfit in school, eventually finding an outlet in the performing arts. She said, "I used to cut school to read Shakespeare, not to make out in the park". She first developed an interest in acting at the age of seven, after her grandmother took her to a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Chastain would regularly put up amateur shows with other children, and considered herself to be their "artistic director". With too many absences during her senior year in school, Chastain did not qualify for graduation, but eventually obtained an adult diploma. She later attended Sacramento City College from 1996 to 1997, during which she was a member of their debate team.

In 1998, Chastain made her professional stage debut as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet staged by TheatreWorks, a company in the San Francisco Bay Area. The production led her to audition for the Juilliard School in New York City, where she was soon accepted and granted a scholarship funded by the actor Robin Williams. In her first year at the school, Chastain described herself as "a wreck of anxiety"; she constantly worried about being dropped from the program and would spend most of her time reading and watching movies. She later remarked that a successful production of The Seagull, in which she participated during her second year, helped build her confidence. She graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003.

Career

2004-10: Early roles

Shortly before graduating from Juilliard, Chastain attended an event for final-year students in Los Angeles, where she was signed on for a talent holding deal by the television producer John Wells. She relocated to California, taking up residence in Venice Beach, and started auditioning for jobs. She initially found the process difficult, remarking that "being a redhead and not having very conventionally modern looks, it was confusing for people and they didn't know exactly where to put me." In her television debut, The WB network's 2004 pilot remake of the 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, she was cast as Carolyn Stoddard. Directed by P. J. Hogan, the pilot did not perform well and the series was eventually not picked up for broadcast. Later that year, she appeared as a guest performer on the medical drama series ER, playing a woman she described as "psychotic", which led to her finding a niche in portraying neurotic roles. She said, "I played a lot of girls who had something off. Maybe they'd been the victim of some horrible accident. Or they were crazy." She went on to appear in such roles in a few other television series from 2004-07, including Veronica Mars (2004), Close to Home (2006) and Law & Order: Trial By Jury (2005-06).

In 2004, Chastain took on the role of Anya in a Williamstown Theatre Festival production of The Cherry Orchard in Massachusetts, in which she starred with Michelle Williams. Also that year, she worked with Playwrights Horizons on a production of Rodney's Wife as the daughter of a troubled middle-aged film actor. Her performance was not well received by the critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times, who thought that she "somehow seems to keep losing color as the evening progresses". While working on the play, she was recommended by her director Richard Nelson to Al Pacino, who was looking for an actress to star in his production of Salome. Written by Oscar Wilde, Salome tells the tragic story of its titular character's sexual exploration. Despite written as a 16-year old, Chastain, who was close to 30 then, was cast in the lead. The play was staged in 2006 at the Wadsworth Theatre in Los Angeles, and Chastain later remarked that it helped bring her to the attention of several casting directors. However, writing for Variety, the critic Steven Oxman criticized her portrayal in it: "Chastain is so ill-at-ease with Salome, not quite certain whether she’s a capable seductress or a whiny, wealthy brat; she doesn’t flesh out either choice".

Chastain made her film debut in 2008 as the titular character in Dan Ireland's drama Jolene, based on a short story by E. L. Doctorow which was inspired by Dolly Parton's song "Jolene". It follows the life of a sexually abused teenager over the course of a decade. While the drama received mixed reviews, Chastain's performance was praised by a reviewer for the New York Observer, who remarked that she "not only holds her own corner of every scene, she's the only thing you want to watch". Chastain won a Best Actress award at the Seattle International Film Festival. The following year, Chastain had a minor role in Stolen (2009), a mystery-thriller film, which was criticized by critics and only received a limited theatrical release. Also in 2009, she played the part of Desdemona in The Public Theatre production of Shakespeare's tragedy Othello, co-starring John Ortiz and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Writing for The New Yorker, Hilton Als commended Chastain for finding "a beautiful maternal depth in Desdemona".

The year 2010 saw Chastain star in John Madden's dramatic thriller The Debt, in which she portrayed a young Mossad agent sent to East Berlin in the 1960s to capture a former Nazi doctor who carried out medical experiments in concentration camps. Chastain shared her role with Helen Mirren—both actresses portraying the character at different phases of her life. They worked together before filming to perfect the voice and mannerisms of the character and make them consistent. In addition, Chastain took classes in German and krav maga, and studied books about Josef Mengele and Mossad history. William Thomas of Empire termed the film a "smart, tense, well-acted thriller" and noted that Chastain "pulses with strength and vulnerability" in her part. Chastain also appeared in an episode of the British television series Agatha Christie's Poirot, based on Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express, which marked her final guest star role in television.

2011: Breakthrough

Having struggled for a breakthrough in film for a number of years, the year 2011 was noteworthy for Chastain. She had six film releases that year and gained wide acclaim and recognition for her roles in several of them. The first of these roles was in Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter, a drama about a troubled father (Michael Shannon) who tries to protect his family (Chastain played his wife) from an impending storm. It was screened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and the critic Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph thought that Chastain's supporting part aided the narrative, writing that she "backs up with luminous concern". She received an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination for the film.

The 61st Berlin International Film Festival saw the release of Coriolanus, an adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name from actor-director Ralph Fiennes, in which Chastain played Virgilia. Her next role was opposite Brad Pitt, as the loving mother of three children in Terrence Malick's experimental drama The Tree of Life, which she filmed back in 2008. Chastain signed on to the film without receiving a traditional screenplay from Malick, and she improvised on several scenes and dialogues with Pitt. She considered her part to be "the embodiment of grace and the spirit world" and in preparation, she practiced meditation, studied paintings of the Madonna, and read poems by Thomas Aquinas. Following several delays in release, the film premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival to a polarizing reception from the audience, although it was praised by critics and eventually won the Palme d'Or prize. Justin Chang of Variety termed the film a "hymn to the glory of creation, an exploratory, often mystifying poem" and credited Chastain for playing her part with "heartrending vulnerability".

Chastain's biggest success of the year came with the comedy-drama The Help, co-starring Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Emma Stone, which was based on Kathryn Stockett's novel of the same name. Chastain played Celia Foote, an aspiring socialite in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, who develops a friendship with her black maid (Spencer). She was drawn to her character's anti-racist stand and connected with her "zest and love for life"; in preparation, she watched the films of Marilyn Monroe and researched on the history of Sugar Ditch, Tennessee, where her character was raised. The Help earned $216 million at the box office to become Chastain's most widely seen film to that point. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times praised the chemistry between Chastain and Spencer and Roger Ebert commended her for being "unaffected and infectious in her performance". The ensemble of The Help won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Cast and Chastain received her first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, in addition to a BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG nomination in the same category, all of which she lost to Spencer.

Chastain's final two roles of the year were in Wilde Salomé, a documentary based on her play Salome, and the critically panned crime-thriller Texas Killing Fields. The latter, co-starring Sam Worthington and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, was a partly fictionalized version of the events in the killing fields of Texas, in which she played a homicide detective. Los Angeles Times' Betsy Sharkey praised Chastain's polished Texas drawl, but criticized the film, writing that "as good as can be they just can't quite pull it off". Chastain's work in 2011, especially in The Help, Take Shelter and The Tree of Life, gained her awards from several critics organizations, including the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

2012-13: Rise to prominence

Two of Chastain's films in 2012 premiered at the 65th Cannes Film Festival—the animated comedy film Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted and the crime drama Lawless. In the former, which marked the third installment of the lucrative Madagascar franchise, Chastain voiced the character of a jaguar in an Italian accent. With a worldwide gross of $747 million, the film ranks as her highest-grossing release. Lawless, directed by John Hillcoat, was based on Matt Bondurant's prohibition era novel The Wettest County in the World. Chastain played a dancer from Chicago who becomes embroiled in a conflict between three bootlegging brothers (played by Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke). The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with Richard Corliss finding Chastain to be filled with "poised, seductive gravity". In an experimental biopic of the author C. K. Williams, entitled The Color of Time (2012), directed by the New York University students of actor James Franco, Chastain took on the role of a young Williams' mother. Originally titled Tar for its premiere at the 2012 Rome Film Festival, the film was renamed for its theatrical release later in 2014.

A short part that Chastain had filmed opposite Ben Affleck in Terrence Mallik's To the Wonder (2012) was edited out of the final film, and due to scheduling conflicts, she dropped out of the action films Oblivion and Iron Man 3 (both 2013). She instead chose to make her Broadway debut in a revival of the 1947 play The Heiress, playing the role of Catherine Sloper, a naive young girl who transforms into a powerful woman. Chastain was initially reticent to accept the role fearing the high anxiety she had faced during her early stage performances. She ultimately agreed to the part after finding a connection to Sloper, saying: "she’s painfully uncomfortable and I used to be that". The production was staged at the Walter Kerr Theatre from November 2012 to February 2013. Brantley was disappointed with Chastain's performance, writing that "curiously for an expert film actress, she is guilty here of oversignaling the thoughts within. And her delivery of dialogue sometimes has a flatness that I associate with cold readings of scripts."

Kathryn Bigelow's thriller Zero Dark Thirty marked Chastain's final film release of 2012. The film tells a partly fictionalized account of the decade-long manhunt for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks. Chastain was cast as Maya, an emotionally hardened CIA intelligence analyst who helped capture Laden. The difficult subject matter made it unpleasant for Chastain to film, and she later considered it as "the worst experience" of her life. She suffered from depression while working and said, " I excused myself, walked off set and burst into tears". Chastain was unable to meet the undercover agent on whom Maya was based and she relied on screenwriter Mark Boal's research. Zero Dark Thirty received critical acclaim but was controversial for its depiction of enhanced interrogation techniques. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone reviewed, "Chastain is a marvel. She plays Maya like a gathering storm in an indelible, implosive performance that cuts so deep we can feel her nerve endings." Roger Ebert made note of Chastain's versatility, and favorably compared her ability and range to that of actress Meryl Streep. For her performance, Chastain won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama and earned Academy, BAFTA and SAG nominations for Best Actress.

Chastain next took on the lead role of a musician who is forced to care for her boyfriend's troubled nieces in the horror film Mama (2013). She was attracted to the idea of playing a woman drastically different from the "perfect mother" roles she had played in Take Shelter and The Tree of Life, and she based her character's look on the singer Alice Glass. The critic Richard Roeper noted on how different the role was from the ones she had previously played, and described it as "further proof she's one of the finest actors of her generation". During the film's opening weekend in North America, Chastain became one of the few performances to have leading roles in the top two films (Mama and Zero Dark Thirty) at the box office. Mama eventually earned $146 worldwide. She then starred as the titular character of a depressed woman who separates from her husband (played by James McAvoy) following a tragic incident in the drama The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby (2013), in which she also served as producer. Initially written by writer-director Ned Benson from the perspective of Rigby's husband, he wrote a separate version of the story from Rigby's perspective on the insistence of Chastain. The film was premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival in two parts—Him and Her—and a third part told from both their perspectives—subtitled Them—was released separately. The critic A. O. Scott believed that Chastain "short-circuits conventional distinctions between tough and vulnerable, showing exquisite control even when her character is losing it, and keeping her balance even when the movie pitches and rolls toward melodrama." However, the film did not find a wide audience.

2014-15: Success in science fiction films

Chastain had three film releases in 2014. She played the eponymous protagonist in Miss Julie, a film adaptation of August Strindberg's 1888 play of the same name, from director Liv Ullmann. Miss Julie tells the tragic tale of a sexually repressed aristocrat (Chastain) who begins an affair with her father's valet (played by Colin Farrell), and Chastain was attracted to the project due to Ullmann's feminist take on the subject. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney was disappointed with the picture, writing that despite "nuanced work" from Chastain the adaptation was "a ponderous, stately affair that lacks relevance". The film received a limited theatrical release and was not widely seen. While filming Miss Julie in Ireland, the script of Christopher Nolan's science fiction film Interstellar (2014) was delivered to Chastain. With a production budget of $165 million, the high-profile production, co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, was significantly filmed using IMAX cameras. She was cast as McConaughey's adult daughter, a role she shared with Mackenzie Foy and Ellen Burstyn, and she was drawn to the project for the emotional heft she found in the father-daughter pair. Drew McWeeny of the entertainment website HitFix found the film to be "ambitious and amazing" and took note of how much Chastain stood out in her supporting part. The film earned over $675 million worldwide to become Chastain's highest-grossing live-action film.

Chastain's final release of 2014 was the J. C. Chandor-directed crime drama A Most Violent Year. Set in New York City in 1981, the year in which the city had the highest crime rate, the film tells the story of a small heating oil company owner (played by Oscar Isaac) and his ruthless wife (Chastain). In preparation, Chastain researched on the period and worked with a coach to develop a Brooklyn accent. She collaborated with costume designer Kasia Walicka-Maimone to work on the character's wardrobe, and reached out to Armani to use their costumes from the era. The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSelle believed Chastain to be "the embodiment of a nouveau riche New York woman of the era" and Mark Kermode of The Guardian found Chastain to be "terrific as the Lady Macbeth power behind the throne". She received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for the film. For her work in 2014, the Broadcast Film Critics Association honored Chastain with a special achievement award.

The year 2015 saw Chastain take on the part of a commander in Ridley Scott's science fiction film The Martian. Starring Matt Damon as a botanist who is stranded on Mars, the film was based on Andy Weir's novel of the same name. Chastain met with astronauts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Johnson Space Center, and based her role on Tracy Caldwell Dyson. She spent time with Dyson in Houston and said, "My character is dealing with the guilt of leaving a crew member behind, but she's still responsible for the lives of five other crew mates. I tried to play her as Tracy would have been in those moments." With a revenue of over $630 million, the film became her second top-grossing film in two years. Also in 2015, Chastain played a villainous countess who plots with her brother (played by Tom Hiddleston) to terrorize his new bride (played by Mia Wasikowska) in Guillermo del Toro's gothic romance Crimson Peak. Despite the character's misdeeds, Chastain approached the part with empathy, and in preparation read graveyard poetry and watched the films Rebecca (1940) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Toro cast her in the film to lend accessibility to a part he considered "psychopathic", but critic Peter Debruge of Variety found her to "alarmingly miscast" in the role, writing that she "flounders to convey vicious insecurity and black-widow ruthlessness". Conversely, David Sims of Slate magazine praised her for portraying her character's "jealous intensity to the hilt".

2016 onward

After portraying a series of intense roles, Chastain actively looked for a light-hearted part. She found just that in the fantasy film The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016), co-starring Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt. The film served as both a sequel and a prequel to the 2012 film Snow White and the Huntsman. She was drawn to the idea of playing a female warrior whose abilities were on par with the male lead, but the film generated negative reviews and performed poorly at the box office. Also that year, Chastain launched a production company named Freckle Films, headed by a team consisting exclusively of female executives, which is expected to partner with Maven Pictures to develop the film adaptations of two books.

As of May 2016, Chastain has seven upcoming projects. She has completed work on the drama The Zookeeper's Wife, an adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name from the director Niki Caro. Chastain co-stars with Johan Heldenbergh as the real-life zookeepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński who saved many human and animal lives during World War II. She has also completed filming for the part of a lobbyist in the gun control thriller Miss Sloane, which reunites her with director John Madden. She has committed to star as a shrewd gossip columnist in Xavier Dolan's first English language film, entitled The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, alongside an ensemble cast including Kit Harington and Natalie Portman. In addition, she will feature in three upcoming biographical films—she will star as the country singer Tammy Wynette opposite Josh Brolin's George Jones in a biopic of Jones, entitled No Show Jones, as the 19th century activist Caroline Weldon, who was an adviser to the Sioux chieftain Sitting Bull in the drama Woman Walks Ahead, and as Molly Bloom, a disgruntled skier who ran a high-profile gambling operation, in Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut Molly’s Game. Chastain is also set to appear in Patrick Brice's comedy film Plus One, opposite Cecily Strong.

Personal life and off-screen work

Despite significant media attention, Chastain remains guarded about her personal life, and chooses not to attend red carpet events with a partner. She considers herself to be a "shy" person, and describing her routine in 2011, she said, "I walk the dogs, I play the ukulele, I cook. I’m not a girl who goes to big parties". She has cited the actress Isabelle Huppert as an influence on her life for managing a family while also playing "out-there roles" in film. In the 2000s, Chastain was in a long-term relationship with writer-director Ned Benson, but the couple broke up in 2010. From 2012 onward, she has been in a relationship with Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, an Italian-born executive for the French fashion brand Moncler. As of 2016, she lives with Preposulo in New York City. Chastain is an animal lover and has adopted a rescue dog. She was a pescatarian for much of her life, but following health troubles she began practicing veganism.

Chastain is a feminist, and has often spoken against the discrimination faced by women and minorities in Hollywood. She wrote an opinion column on gender imbalance in the industry for a December 2015 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Among other issues, she is vocal in her support for equal pay in the workplace: "I think people know, if they’re going to hire me I’m not going to just be grateful. There have been situations where I have lost movies because I’ve said, this is not a fair deal, and I’ve walked away.” In 2013, Chastain lent her support to the Got Your 6 campaign, that helps empower veterans of the United States army, and in 2016, she became an advisory board member to the organization We Do It Together, which produces films and television shows to promote the empowerment of women.

Having suffered through the suicide of her sister, Chastain aims to create awareness on depression, saying, "If I can do anything to help someone move through any darkness that they’re in, I’m gonna do whatever I can to help". She supports charitable organizations that promote mental health, and is involved with the non-profit organization To Write Love on Her Arms to help high-school students of alternate sexual and gender identities overcome their insecurities. She was teased as a child for having red hair and freckles and now takes a stand against bullying and body shaming.

Media image

Describing Chastain's off-screen persona, InStyle magazine published in 2015 that "she’s an adult, which isn’t always a given in Hollywood. Unconsciously candid with her answers, she retains a sense of perspective uncommon among her peers and has real opinions"; in addition, the magazine credited her for being the rare actress who is “all about the craft”. Evgenia Peretz, an editor at Vanity Fair considers Chastain to be "the most sensitive and empathetic actor" she has interviewed, and her colleague Jessica Diehl takes note of Chastain's "timeless elegance" which she thinks is "almost incongruous for the current times".

Chastain specializes in portraying emotionally grueling roles and is drawn towards parts of strong but flawed women. She believes in extensive preparations for a role, and (in her own words) she tries to "fill myself up with as much history of the character as I can". Chastain is unique in being a Hollywood actress who overcame ageism to become a leading lady in her 30s. The critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have praised Chastain's versatility, and W magazine credits her for avoiding typecasting. Guillermo del Toro (who directed her in Crimson Peak) believes that she is "interested in being chameleonic" and that "no matter how bizarre the situation she’s able to bring completely real emotions to the game". Describing Chastain's abilities as an actress, Sophie Heawood of The Guardian wrote that "she brings so little ego to the roles she plays, so little of herself, that you go away with no idea who that actress actually was." Harper's Bazaar opines that "she goes for total immersion, sinking so deep into character that her face seems to change shape with each one". Lea Goldman of Marie Claire compares her craft to that of actresses Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett and believes that her "looks are always an afterthought".

Chastain's beauty and sex-appeal have been picked up by several sources, including Vogue, who describes Chastain's physical features as "excessively luscious pale Botticelli features wrapped around a bone structure that has a touch of the masculine, right down to the cleft in her chin". She was named the sexiest vegetarian actress in a poll conducted by PETA in 2012. From 2012-14 she was featured in AskMen's listing of the most desirable women, and in 2013 she was placed in Maxim's listing of the 100 hottest women in the world. In 2015, Glamour magazine ranked her as one of the best-dressed women. Time magazine named Chastain one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012. Also in 2012, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and was named the celebrity endorser for a Yves Saint Laurent fragrance called Manifesto. In 2015, she became the global ambassador for the Swiss jewelry and watchmaking company Piaget SA.

Acting credits and awards

Main articles: Jessica Chastain on screen and stage and List of awards and nominations received by Jessica Chastain

According to the review-aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes and the box office site Box Office Mojo, Chastain's highest-grossing and most acclaimed films include Take Shelter (2011), The Help (2011), Coriolanus (2011), Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Mama (2013), Interstellar (2014), A Most Violent Year (2014), and The Martian (2015). Among her stage roles, she has appeared in a Broadway revival of The Heiress in 2012.

Chastain has been nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress for The Help (2011) and Best Actress for Zero Dark Thirty (2012). She won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama for Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and has been twice nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture for The Help (2011) and A Most Violent Year (2014).

[ Source: Wikipedia ]