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Jessica Chastain is swiftly emerging as one of her generation’s most decorated actors. Within a little over a year, she’s taken home the Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, won a Drama Desk Award and received a Tony nomination for her Broadway tour-de-force in A Doll’s House, and nabbed her first Emmy nod for the Showtime miniseries George & Tammy. But last month, as we spoke in the glow of that lattermost recognition, the grind and hustle that got her to this point was top of mind. Along with the rest of her SAG-AFTRA union, she was about to go on strike.
For the Juilliard graduate, it’s all related—in the way she’s found her groove in Hollywood by developing her own vehicles, serving as a lead producer on all of those aforementioned projects. The way she used to stretch a guest-spot paycheck over months thanks to residuals, even as she kept losing out on other roles. The way she’s learned to live in her art, realizing the emotional impact of a job, a commitment, a performance. In George & Tammy, brilliantly portraying the country singer Tammy Wynette opposite Michael Shannon’s George Jones, Chastain pushed herself to sing the duo’s iconic songs, live. Terrifying, but worth it. It’s what an actor does.
On this week’s Little Gold Men (listen or read below), Chastain goes deep on what it means to be an actor today, and what she and her union are fighting for—both practically and artistically.
Vanity Fair: Let’s get this out of the way: You’ve been on quite a streak. You won an Oscar recently, you were just Tony-nominated, and this is your first Emmy nod. For someone who’s been in this industry for a little bit now, what does that embrace feel like?
Jessica Chastain: To have the most incredible past Couple of years—and I have to say, the past couple years, it’s also been more of me producing the projects. That I find interesting. As women get older in the industry, we need to become more active in producing projects in order for us to have a place here—because no one else will do it for us. When you just said that, I’m speaking this for the first time out loud, so I haven’t really thought it through, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye, George & Tammy and A Doll’s House were all projects that I was involved behind the scenes and not just acting.
How have you found navigating this industry with that sense of self-reliance?
It’s a complicated thing. I have a friend of mine visiting me right now, and she’s kind of transitioning into becoming a writer, and I think it’s beautiful. Women are exploring other ways of creating their own work. But it also makes me a little bit sad that it’s necessary. I’m happy that I’m doing it. I love doing it, but I wish more people were interested in telling these stories and that these actresses wouldn’t have to do that.
Have you learned anything about the business that’s surprised you, either in a good way or a bad way?
I watched the industry for a long time before I had the opportunity of working in it, and I gathered a lot of information. It has changed quite a bit, the whole #MeToo culture, which I am appreciative of, the idea that there’s now more resources for people who feel like they’re in an unhealthy, abusive situation. There are abuses that were really out in the open, now they’re just gone. I don’t see anything anywhere near to what I used to see in the past with just how people were treated and the sexist jokes and all of that. That really has dissipated a lot. So those have changed in our industry.
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