“I like unlikeable characters. The world is not black and white” – Irish Times

Around this time in 2022, when Jessica Chastain won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as disgraced televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, Michel Franco had concerns. Chastain was scheduled to play her leading role in her new movie Memory. Some people involved in the Mexican director's small independent productions wondered how they would cope with the demands of the Academy Award-winning star. Other industry insiders warned that a big-name actor like Chastain, who has been nominated for two Oscars, is certain to leave in favor of a bigger movie.

Chastain not only appeared, but also bought costumes at Target in Nashville to help shape the tone of Franco's film. It's not a glamorous role. Her character works at a care center and never wears makeup. The actor styled, or rather anti-styled, his hair every day.

When “Memory'' premiered in Venice last fall, she said, “If you want to pamper yourself, go to a spa.'' She also suggested Peter Sarsgaard as her co-star, and for this role he eventually won the Volpi Cup at the Italian city's International Film Festival.

Actors may change the script or story to suit themselves.But a better way is for the actor to change himself to suit the script

“I've always wanted to work with Peter,” says Chastain. “I've made no secret of being a fan of him as an actor. He's a real artist. Sometimes actors change scripts and stories to suit themselves. But what's a better way to do it? It's about an actor changing himself to fit the script. That's Peter. You see it in everything he does. He's a shapeshifter. This is a very low-budget movie, so Peter wins Venice. It got a lot of attention because of that. There's no doubt that when a movie like this is nominated for an award, it gets a lot of attention.”

It's easy to see why top actors were drawn to Franco's complex drama. As “Memory'' begins, Sylvia, played by Chastain, a single mother in recovery from her addiction, reluctantly attends her high school reunion. She is easily disturbed by a man who smiles and sits next to her, and becomes even more upset when he follows her home. The man, Saul (Sarsgaard), has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and lives under the care of his brother and niece. Sylvia mistakenly believes that Saul is one of several boys who sexually abused her at her school. She still has a fear of men. “I asked for a repair woman,” she says of the worker who came to fix the refrigerator.

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It is unlikely that it will become the basis for a tender and troubled relationship that will occur later. Saul's ability to live in the moment allows Sylvia to access her buried trauma. Her family secrets are revealed one after another, escalating into dramatic scenes between Sylvia and her estranged mother (played by Jessica Harper).

“This movie touched a part of me,” Chastain says. “When it comes to acting, if there's nothing wrong with it, is it worth doing? That doesn't mean there's any mental or physical danger. What matters is that you might be embarrassed.” There are a lot of things that aren't actually dangerous, but that could be. And this is where I end up getting emotional even when I don't want to be emotional when talking about certain scenes. It's a movie like that. I allowed it to seep into me in a way that might be uncomfortable.”

Franco's cunning and neurotic script plays on flawed memory abilities through misdirection, uncertain motives, and denial. A heart-stopping series of events outside our bedroom door threatens to rewrite everything we thought we knew. Other scenes explore the nature of compassion.

“The world is not black and white,” Chastain says. “Human beings are just gray areas. Great people are complex and do irresponsible things, while terrible people have tenderness and vulnerability at certain points in their lives. I found the characters likable enough. I don't get too hung up on the idea that I have to have or be attractive enough. It feels like a Hollywood studio requirement. But that's not in European cinema, which is my bread and butter. Independent films You won't find that in other international films. Anything that breaks stereotypes will make you feel like you're watching real people.

“It's not an industry where it's okay to make one movie a year, especially if the movie I'm interested in is a Michel Franco movie.”

“There's this assumption that if you don't know everything about a character, she's somehow scary. That's the fate of women, right? She has too many secrets. She must be up to something really dangerous. I think there's an expectation, especially for women, to be completely clear about all of your motives and to be an open book with nothing on your plate. But I think that's getting tired of me. , I’m always watching movies that show that all these old tropes are being destroyed,” she laughs. “I like all the unique characters.”

Franco, the creator of the incest drama “Daniel and Anna'' and the nightmarish social media bullying tragedy “After Lucia,'' has a similar appreciation for his struggling protagonists. The New Order, a gritty dystopian film set in 2020 in which Mexico's underclass rebels against the 1 percent, was heavily criticized for playing on racial stereotypes. “I've seen all of his movies, but his most controversial movie, New Order, is definitely my favorite,” Chastain says.

“I like projects that maybe not everyone is comfortable with. I'm a water cooler guy. I love things that really generate discussion. 'New Order' is just too shocking. The performances… It's great. I think that's very frustrating because it feels like that's happening. The way he films people coming over the wall and coming towards them is amazing. It's so slow and it It takes a very long time for that to happen. I think that's much scarier than someone trying to create an action-thriller sequence.”

[ New Order review: When class warfare goes bad ]

When The Irish Times last spoke to Chastain, she talked about her impoverished childhood in California. “I grew up with a single mother who worked hard to put food on the table,” she said of her home life in Sacramento. “We didn't have any money. There were many nights when we had to sleep without eating. We had a very difficult upbringing.” “I always try to think about what I want to be for other people,” he added.

Therefore, she has embraced feminist ideals, like Tammy Faye Bakker and Tammy Wynette, whom she played in George & Tammy, a story about the tumultuous marriages of country stars. She has built a career around advocating for women, even those who don't live up to her standards.

The path that took her away from her sometimes unstable home life also meant that she had to battle drug addiction and the death of her sister to suicide just before Chastain began her acting career. , that path was brought about by Shakespeare. At age 21, she played Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet in Mountain View, California. She used her monologue from the play to audition for New York's Juilliard School, where Robin Williams (who reportedly saw all the films Chastain made before his death in 2014) financed the film. Thanks to the scholarship she received, she became the first member of the Academy. Her family ended up attending college.

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When she was 29 years old, Al Pacino cast her in the role of Salome. She was 37 years old when the film, written and directed by Pacino, was released. By then she had received back-to-back Oscar nominations for The Help and Zero Dark Thirty.

She remains secretive about her family life. Neither her husband, Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, nor her children will be attending the red carpet event. “If I go to border control or get my passport stamped and someone recognizes me, it's because of Zero Dark Thirty,” she says. “If you're a cool movie geek, it's 'Interstellar.' If it's just a street movie lover, but only if I'm wearing makeup that day, because I look different in the movie.” It is indeed 'Molly's Game.'

Chastain has been vocal about her commitment to equal pay since the beginning of her career, even if it meant saying no to Marvel. Octavia Spencer, her co-star in The Help, spoke of Chastain's horror when she learned that Spencer was making significantly less than the rest of her cast. “I love that woman because she walks the walk and she actually talks the talk,” Spencer recalled. “She said, 'You and I are going to be together.' We're going to be a favored nation and we're going to do the same thing. You're going to make that amount of money.'” Last week Going back, we are producing five times more than requested.”

In 2019, Williams' co-star in All the Money in the World, Mark Wahlberg, was paid $1.5 million for reshoots, while Williams was paid just one day. Chastain fell behind Michelle Williams. (Wahlberg had already received eight times the amount Williams needed to sign the Ridley Scott production.) And I heard that she was,” Williams said in a speech in Washington, D.C. He also noted that Chastain's broader campaign for equality led to a $2 million donation to the Time's Up Legal Fund, which helps people who have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. .

“I read something Taraji said recently,” Chastain said, referring to Oscar-nominated actor Taraji P. Henson. “She started crying during the interview. She was talking about everyone's assumptions about actors' salaries. People say, 'I make $10 million a movie.' I've never made $10 million in my life. That's crazy. But even with a lot of money, Taraji explained how it works. Fifty percent goes toward taxes. His 30% of the proceeds will be donated to your team. This is not the industry I think it was in the past. It is not financially stable. Not for me or my family anyway. It's not an industry where it's okay to make one movie a year. The salary is not what most people would expect, especially if the movie I'm interested in is a Michel Franco movie. I work a lot for that. ”

memory In theaters from February 23rd (Friday)