Jessica Chastain has delivered knockout performances over the past 15 years. She had a breakthrough 2011, appearing in about a half dozen high-profile films, including "The Help," as Celia Rae Foote, earning her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Her co-star Octavia Spencer swept that category that awards season. My favorite Chastain performance that year was as Mrs. O'Brien in Terrence Malick's thought-provoking drama "The Tree of Life."
The next year, 2012, featured a Chastain voice performance in DreamWorks Animation's "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" - the best installment in the trilogy. And Chastain played Maya Harris in director Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty," winning the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama and the Critics Choice Award for best actress. But she lost the Oscar to Jennifer Lawrence, who was outstanding in "Silver Linings Playbook." However, after two consecutive nominations, it was clear that at some point Chastain was gonna win an Academy Award.
Every year she was in at least one film people were definitely talking about, from 2013's "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby" - a relationship story told over three movies - to 2014's sci-fi epic "Interstellar" and gritty crime drama "A Most Violent Year." In 2015 she starred opposite Matt Damon in "The Martian." In 2016 she was quite good in political thriller "Miss Sloane," and equally strong in 2017's "The Zookeeper's Wife" and "Molly's Game.”
And then in 2021 came the performance that would finally win Chastain an Academy Award - as televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye." She immersed herself in this role, rising above a wishy-washy script. In her acceptance speech, Chastain thanked the hair and makeup team (who also won that night) - she told the LA Times she spent about four hours in the makeup chair each day. This was the culmination of a decade-long journey, having acquired the film rights to Tammy Faye Bakker's life in 2012.
Post-Oscar, her best work has been in drama "The Good Nurse" and as another Tammy - iconic singer Tammy Wynette on the Showtime limited series "George & Tammy," with Michael Shannon as George Jones.
Chastain stars in two major films this fall. The first is "Other Mommy," in theaters Oct. 9. It's based on a 2024 novel about called "Incidents Around the House," about a young girl who encounters someone who looks exactly like her mother. Oh yeah, and it's a horror movie. You might've seen the trailer before showings of "The Odyssey" this summer and thought, "What in the world?!" But this is not Chastain's debut in the horror genre. She starred in 2013's "Mama," a box office hit during her "Zero Dark Thirty" awards campaign, 2015's "Crimson Peak" (directed by Guillermo del Toro) and 2019's "It: Chapter Two."
And then this November on Netflix is the release of "Heartland," a crime thriller with Chastain returning to the country music scene. She plays Misty Jones, a retired star looking for her missing niece in Nashville. You know what they say about country music: It's three chords and the truth. So here's the truth on Jessica Chastain: She isn't afraid to take bold swings, and most of the time, they pay off.
Upstate New York native Jackson Murphy has been reviewing films on radio, TV, and online for more than 20 years. The Emmy winner, content producer, and author is a member of SAG-AFTRA and the Critics' Choice Association.
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