Movies Features

Jessica Chastain talks Take Shelter

By Anne Brodie Oct 2, 2011, 16:55 GMT

Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself. ...more

Jessica Chastain is one of the most in demand young actresses to emerge in Hollywood in years.  Theatrically trained and blessed with delicate porcelain beauty, Chastain came to mainstream notice as Brad Pitt’s wife in The Tree of Life for reclusive filmmaker Terrence Malick. 

He was so struck by Chastain that he is making his second film with her, an untitled project, just one year after Tree of Life.  And that’s news because Malick has made just six films since 1978.  And now many of the eleven films that Chastain made in the past couple of years are coming out and she is everywhere.  

The Help, one of the most successful films of the year, held the number one spot at the box office for weeks. 

Chastain’s latest, Take Shelter is co-starring Michael Shannon, concerns a young wife and mother who must deal with the seemingly progressive madness of her husband as he awaits a storm of Biblical proportions.  

Monsters and Critics spoke with Chastain in Toronto.

Chastain with Michael Shannon in Take Shelter.

M&C: Mindy Kaling recently said “It’s Jessica Chastain’s universe and we just live in it”.  How do you respond to that?

Chastain: It’s a strange thing; this wonderful attention I get is usually from the journalist on press days.  My everyday life is exactly the same. I’ve been recognized two or three times since May.   It’s crazy.   I’m not a shy person. I’m not the girl at the club on the table. I’m going to be the one in the corner, quiet and so I don’t call attention to myself. 

So my normal life is exactly the same. I can’t tell you, this is so wonderful.  After four years! I would live off my credit cards and I would try to get extra credit cards. 

When I knew I was doing Tree of Life, I lived off my credit cards so I wouldn’t have to take another job so I could focus on researching the character and then shoot he movie and then pay off my credit card. And The Debt, the same thing, living off credit cards. It was like this for you years and the films didn’t come out.

So to have this last six months where you look at Cannes and both films and two films at every festival and the number one and number two films in the box office in the US is really this immense happiness and joy but I know it doesn’t last.

I hope to be an actor and have a long career, but this is what's happened this year and it's fleeting and powerful and so that’s how I deal with it.
 
M&C: What was the order of the films you’ve made this year?

Chastain: I filmed Take Shelter before The Help so last year and then I filmed Coriolanus, Texas Killing Fields, The Help and the new Terrence Malick film.  I know, it’s crazy. But I was only a week on the new Terrence Malick film.  I went straight from this set to Grafton, Ohio to Mississippi for The Help.

M&C: And you gained weight for The Debt in between?

Chastain: The last week of shooting Take Shelter, the boys were teasing me because I was eating so much and I was like “I have to pack on the pounds”.   If you look you can see my character here and in The Help, you wonder how it happened.  She’s very skinny here.  There was something I wanted to look like, as though they were living hand to mouth, this kind of weary life. 

The week before I left I started eating chips, anything off the craft services table, all day long, everything! Then I went to The Help and I had two weeks there and so three weeks in total to pack it on and while I was filming.

Chastain in Terrence Malick's Tree of Life.

M&C: How do you pick your roles?

Chastain: It’s always about have I done this character before?   What am I going to learn from this?  Is it a challenge?  And I who am I going to work with?   Michael Shannon, I knew when I heard he would play Curtis, I felt great. 

I am  a big fan and we both some from New York theatre and when I got the script sent to me I was doing a play at the Labyrinth Theatre Company with Phillip Seymour Hoffman and they had all worked with Mike.  

I asked and they all said he was great.  I read the script and I asked if he was a nice guy or a son-of-a-bitch.  

I knew it would be an intense shoot and life is too short to work with a jerk, so thank God they said he was lovely and they couldn’t have been more complementary of him as an actor and how generous he was and it was true when I got there.

M&C: How do you pick between film and theater?

Chastain: Every single thing I’ve done I’ve felt so proud of, there are certain scenarios in plays I’ve done those are the hardest thing, If the play isn’t quite working, if the director and you don’t really have the same vision or the actor doesn’t have the right chemistry with you. 

It’s not like a movie, you film that and then you go away and have your life and a year later it comes out and you are separate.  In a play the audience is there watching you crash.  More for theatre than film.  I’ve been lucky in film and very happy, because I’ve worked with actors who teach me things.

M&C: How important is fashion to you?

Chastain: Fashion to me is costumes, it’s not about this is the cool brand, or this is the best silhouette on me. I like fashion where it tells stories each time. Even photo shoot, I did the cover of W magazine and they dressed me up as David Bowie, I love to show different sided of myself and that’s why I love fashion. I love working with designers. 

It’s not about the prettiest dress it’s about being interesting. What does this dress say? Fashion to me is like a piece of music or a painting. I like it when it means something.

M&C: What does this purple and lavender dress and nude mules mean?

Chastain: This means I’m so happy!!! This is me absolutely celebrating this moment and feeling very much like a feminine girl today and I feel like a flower right now.

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