Jessica Chastain covers Porter Magazine, mostly to promote The Forgiven, a film adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s novel. She stars alongside Ralph Fiennes – they are a wealthy couple traveling through Morocco for a decadent party when Ralph’s character (who was behind the wheel) hits a young Moroccan boy and kills him. Chaos ensues. Jessica usually doesn’t play those kinds of characters, where she’s playing someone rich and filled with ennui. Jessica spoke to Porter about winning the Best Actress Oscar, reproductive rights and a lot more.
Winning the Oscar: “So many people after [the award ceremonies] were coming up to me and they could see how genuinely surprised I was. I’m used to just putting my head down. I’m not a very public person and I don’t really embrace fame… so to have a moment of this global recognition is so different to my everyday life.”
She joined TikTok but she’s still trying to enforce boundaries. “I don’t want to publicly create a record of my personal life that then doesn’t allow itself to grow and evolve and change. I have a lot of empathy for people, and for teenagers, who are supposed to make mistakes – and that’s how we grow – but now there’s always going to be a record of it.”
The response to her Oscar speech, where she spoke about empathy & love: “Well…” she takes a pause. “It was a weird night.” Her speech was a standout, but headlines were dominated by another moment on stage, when Will Smith struck host Chris Rock before going on to win Best Actor. That’s not what we’re here to talk about, but it was still a fraught atmosphere when her name was called shortly afterwards. “I walked into a very charged energy in that room, and I was trying to figure out… how to just breathe and create a calmness.”
What she wanted to do with her speech: She wanted to call out “discriminatory and bigoted legislation sweeping our country, with the goal of further dividing us” and raising the importance of suicide awareness. “I’ve lost someone very dear to me to suicide [her younger sister, Juliet, in 2003], and I knew I wanted to touch on that because, with everything that was going on, it was clear that we were moving into an area in our politics of intolerance and discrimination. I didn’t know everything I was going to say and there were moments where I started to get emotional so I pulled it back, but I had an idea of what I wanted to use that global platform to create if I got up there.”
She’s seen radical changes in her industry just in the past 12 years: “People coming into the industry now have a different set of rules than 12 years ago… You know, in the past, I felt like, if I had an idea for a scene, I had to speak to the male actor I was working with – and then, if he liked it, he would bring it up with the director. I noticed if I brought things up to a director, it was like an immediate no, not even really having a conversation. [It was] a silly game that had to be played, which I don’t think is the case now.”
On the overturning of Roe v. Wade: “I think we need to remind each other what history used to look like for women, because it does feel like that has been forgotten,” says Chastain, a public supporter of Planned Parenthood, of what is bringing her inspiration. “In some sense, we’ve taken for granted this idea, [of] being able to live a life free of violence and someone else making decisions about your welfare, your safety… This idea of reminding us what it is like when one group loses their rights – it’s a trickle-down effect. It affects everyone, and so I think the stories I start looking at will have to deal with that.”
I like how she didn’t mention Will Smith by name or even talk about the slap. And there was a really weird energy following the slap, and Jessica was one of only a handful of people to go over to Will and Jada to speak to both of them after the incident with Chris Rock. I think it speaks to her character that she’s not telling everyone how “traumatizing” it was, or using racist dog whistles or whatever. She’s staying out of it, which is exactly what she needs to do.
As for what she says about Roe… she’s saying women got complacent, and younger women didn’t know what it used to be like in their mom’s generation or grandmother’s generation. And she’s right? There was such complacency about reproductive rights and so many women just refused to acknowledge that their bodily autonomy was on a knife’s edge.
Cover & IG courtesy of net-a-porter.com.
I lot of younger women took for granted the rights they had. I noticed many were anti-feminist because they “didn’t hate men” or “didn’t want to be labeled.” Imagine enjoying the benefits of feminism while demonizing the women who made those benefits possible.
Yes! That was infuriating. I guess they’re figuring it out now. Not sure care for women meant hate for men but anyone who preaches that has an agenda or is a fool.
She is 100% correct. I don’t know that it was a “refusal” to acknowledge bodily autonomy was at risk, but most younger women born in the post-Roe world just couldn’t actually comprehend that is was still possible to lose those rights, because they had always been there.
Sadly, now we have to deal with the consequences regardless.
Sure, it was complacency but also a 50 year plan that was executed beautifully. And women did raise the alarm along every step of the way.
It was just not a priority because there were and are simply still too many men making the political decisions and well, as long as THEIR rights weren’t on the chopping block…
I really hope that this is the one step too far that wakes Americans up to the very real danger they are facing.
From your mouth…
I couldn’t agree with her more about complacency in generations Y and Z right now. They don’t realize how bad it was for women 60 years ago. But with Roe v. Wade overturned they are finally opening their eyes which should translate into more votes to get rid of legislators who want America rolled back to the 1950’s.
This is one of the reasons that “girl boss” historical fiction worries me. I get that people want affirming stories, but you get younger people not realizing that in 1970 a married woman couldn’t open up a bank account or get a credit card in her own name.
Concern Fae, This needs to be canon, that a married woman in 1970 couldn’t have her own bank account or credit card. Every person needs to know that. And every guy has benefitted from a woman or girl’s [+trans and non binary] right to choose.
Exactly.
I adore her. Simply adore her. From standing up for her co-stars (Octavia Spencer) to make sure they get equal pay, to fighting for the rights of others, to enjoying her glorious talent.
Right? The first thing that came to mind when I read that headline was how she stood by Octavia and encouraged her to ask for what she is worth, what she needed, what she wanted, and how much Octavia loves her for doing it.
And showing the world that this is how you live out your beliefs. Words + actions.
@ snappyfish, I adore her as well!! She is certainly worthy of the accolades that are bestowed upon her!! Jessica is a woman of conviction, character as well as propping up all of the women around her!! Octavia who in her own career, is also a phenomenal actor too, though I am glad that she identified the discrimination and supported and encouraged Octavia to demand greater pay to equal her worthiness!!!
It isn’t only younger women though. I was telling my mother who is 71 for years about how important the Supreme Court was and that we needed liberal justices because there were cases winding their way through to the SC that would challenge it. She kept telling me it was a Dem scare tactic and there was no way that they would ever over turn Roe and we were being alarmist. She and many in her age group got complacent and thought we got it, we don’t have to fight for it anymore.
I’m not saying they caused this but many older well educated suburban women voted Rep/Trump because they assumed Roe/SC wasn’t a real problem and needed to worry about their taxes. I do blame her generation for this in part because they should have known better and done better by their daughters and grand daughters.
Thank you for say “many” and not lumping in all suburban moms. My mom was a volvo station wagon-driving, PBS addict who was stubborn in her beliefs. She was a Bernie bro who said it was his positions that persuaded her, not his history. She was a ‘never Trump’ voter, a Trump hater who thought he was the worst candidate ever. After his election she looked at me beseechingly and said “what are we going to do?” It was like the anti Christ had arrived.
That was the bait and switch tactic of Drumpf and his minions, though it was purely for selfish reasons as well as those to whom he was acting in their best interests as well.
Jesus Cheeto God. Anyone who wonders how to work a PR campaign effectively just needs to look at the comment sections for this article.
Trump was far smarter, in the beginning, than I ever could have imagined.
It’s not about Generation Y and Z not doing enough.
55% of white women were complicit by voting for Trump – even when they knew his platform was for overturning Roe compared to black (90% for Biden) and latinx (70% for Biden).
Those women that voted for Trump are just now waking up, because they were ok with rights taken from other folks. They never expected that it would actually affect them.
@ Azblue, you are right!! As a boomer, I have always held our rights for reproductive health and/or abortion deeply protected. Having grown up in a large left leaning city of Houston, it never crossed my mind that our reproductive rights were at such a high level of danger, even though PP offices were bombed and abortion doctors were being killed in a few states.
But all of that changed when we moved to a smaller, right leaning city that is still stuck with the ideology of the ‘50’s. Witnessing and being the victim of attacks of myself, and/or my daughter, regarding our visit to our local PP shook me to the core. As soon as we pulled up into the parking lot, long before distance measures were enacted, we had people aggressively with threatening manner come after us, at least 30 people!! At first I was taken aback but I wasn’t going to stand back and allow them near her.
Here we are in a Texas smaller city in 2003/4, and the antiabortionist were already targeting and harassing us. This was a clear message that the rights to our reproductive rights were already under siege back then and even before 2003/4.
Our choices for the right to decide what is best for our families or ourselves has been under attack for more than 25+ years. Here we are in 2022 and it’s gone. All of it at the hands of those who want to hold ALL of our power of what we can and cannot do with our OWN bodies.
As a Caucasian women, I have never voted for a Republican and I will not start now. We must hold the women that voted for Drumpf/McConnell/Cruz/DeSatin/Abbott and well as Graham for allowing them to strip us of OUR rights!! And those who wouldn’t go to the polls in 2016 as well!! That includes their local and state elections as well.
She’s lovely.