In late 2004, Chastain Central became aware of a relatively unknown actress with distinctive red hair named Jessica Chastain. She was at that time playing the part of Lee, the daughter of Rodney, in the play Rodney's Wife. It was her first professional New York stage appearance.
Since then, her acting career has exploded, and due to the release of her several backlogged movies, she is becoming a household name this year!
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2011 is the Year Jessica's Movies Begin to Hit!
Because her birth name was Howard, the question frequently arises whether she is the daughter of director Ron Howard. She is not. However, both Jessica and Ron Howard's real daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, are among the cast of the movie The Help. Interestingly, Jessica and Bryce Dallas Howard are both red-heads and bear a strong resemblance.
Jessica has been a vegetarian since she was about fifteen, but she became a vegan some ten years later. She told NY Moves Magazine, “I was having so much trouble with energy and a friend of mine said, ‘You know, just go vegan for two weeks,’ and I did and I felt so good, healthwise, that I thought, ‘Okay. I’m going to stick to this.’ That’s how it started, but then you start to read. Once I started doing that I thought, “I don’t know that I’ll ever not be vegan.’” So she dropped animal products cold turkey, for health and compassion. “I just did it and that was the end.”
She then influenced her mother to become vegan as well. In fact, her mother is now a vegan chef and caterer and is Jessica's number one fan. Jessica reported that “My poor mother is telling everyone she knows, ‘Jessica is doing a movie with Brad Pitt, with Al Pacino', and everyone is looking at her two years later going, ‘Sure, sure.’” Jessica's father is a fireman. She has two sisters and two brothers. Her oldest brother is in the army and currently serving in Iraq, and her younger brother, Daniel, starred in the movie short, The Westerner.
Jessica is close to her grandmother, who grew up in Kansas. Her grandmother is the one who took her to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as a child. She is also the one who flew with Jessica to Julliard for her audition. Jessica says her grandmother is the wild one in her family, and she encourages Jessica to be more showy and sensual in her acting. She was called 'Motorcycle Mama' by Jessica's elementary school classmates. When she learned that Jessica had been cast as Celia in The Help, her grandmother (a fan of the book) thought they had ruined the movie because Jessica was not a good match for Celia, but she was happy once she saw the film. Jessica discusses her grandmother on Conan 
Jessica's line of descent from French Huguenot immigrant Pierre Chastain (1700) has not yet been established.
A reviewer described Romeo and Juliet as set in modern Northern Ireland, with the feuding Capulets and Montagues depicted as bitterly opposed Catholics and Protestants, adding, "It's the appealing, intense performances of Travis Engle and Jessica Chastain as Romeo and Juliet that lend such a sense of universality to this production. Engle and Chastain, themselves 17 and 21, portray the famous couple as what they really were--love-struck teenagers."
Jessica was the first of her family to graduate from college, and she did a Yoplait commercial just after finishing. A fellow actor suggested she consider Julliard in New York, and Jessica attended there as a drama major with the help of a scholarship from Robin Williams. She has described her over-the-top Julliard audition as Juliet (she must really like Juliet) in several places, such as Elle Canada Magazine, "I played it like a hot 14-year-old girl who was going to become a woman that night. I was lying on the floor and really into the monologue. When it was over, I looked at the panel of older Julliard people--they were all just staring at me." When she described it earlier to Elle (USA), she said, "I'm on the floor writhing about, completely crazy," as she pined for Romeo to take her virginity.
Upon arriving at Julliard, Jessica moved into the dorm with other first year students. She was awed by some of the people she saw at the school, such as Itzhak Perlman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Yo-Yo Ma. Ralph Fiennes came to speak to her class. She was also in New York during the 9/11 attacks.
After graduation from Julliard in 2003 in her early twenties, Jessica moved back to the west coast to continue her journey as an actress. In her last year at Juilliard, Jessica was spotted in an acting showcase by John Wells, creator of The West Wing and ER. He signed her at once to a 12-month holding contract. A holding contract binds an actor to a network or producer for a certain period while they develop a role or show for her. The actor is paid whether or not a project materializes, but during that period they cannot accept work anywhere else. Jessica filmed for Wells four Law and Order episodes, one episode of ER, and the pilot for Dark Shadows. She told Vogue Magazine in 2011, "I've been lucky. I've never had to take a job except for acting."
Julliard was not the end of Jessica's training. She mentions regularly that the directors she works for are also her teachers, and she specifically points to Al Pacino and Terrence Malick as being master teachers. Pacino taught her how to act differently for the camera than for the stage, and she told Flaunt Magazine that Malick was, "probably one of the greatest teachers I’ll ever know. A great teacher for filmmaking, for acting, but also and mostly, a great teacher of what it is to be a great human being. I value him so much."
Jessica lists among her dialects: Irish, Standard English, Southern, and Israeli. She also speaks some German. Among her other acting talents are a soprano singing voice, skills in scuba diving, bicycling, and the ability to wiggle her ears and nose! When violence is needed, she can bring out kickboxing, stage combat (unarmed, quarter staff, and rapier), and Krav Maga. Don't pick a fight with Jessica!
- I was the girl who never thought I'd be anything but an actor. (W Magazine)
- I was the girl who cut school to go to the park, and the other kids would be smoking and drinking and I'd be reading Shakespeare. (Elle Magazine)
- I’m not the girl that would walk into the room and everyone goes, ‘Oh!’ (Flaunt Magazine)
- If I am suddenly this 'festival girl,' it's because of the directors I choose to work with. For me that is everything. (deadline.com)
- Why is this girl in every single movie I’m seeing this fall? [2011] (The Associated Press)
- Even if I disappear, I’ll always be the girl that was in that movie. [Tree of Life] (The Big Issue in Scotland)
- I've done 11 films so far, and in all of them, I was the girl on the set. [Regarding being one of five women stars in The Help] (Los Angeles Times)
- I'm like the nerdy red-headed girl; I've never been the blonde bombshell. (Los Angeles Times)
- You know...I'm a pacifist; I am not really like...I'm not quite the gun-totin' girl. (Indiewire)
- I was never the girl in high school who was wanting to be in office or something — who would campaign for myself to become student-body president. (Movieline)
From interviews and from comments from directors and colleagues, we receive other insights into what kind of person Jessica is. She comes across as pleasant, personable, and a person of genuine humility; she is not interested in some aspects of fame and does not want to lose her enjoyment of being able to interact with people as a real person. At the same time, she seems to have a tendency herself to be a bit starstruck when meeting big stars. She appreciates those, such as Brad Pitt, who do not make a big deal of being a celebrity. She still seems amazed by her rise in attention along with the glitz of film festivals and photo shoots. Yet she is not pretentious about it; in fact she anticipates a time when her movie fame will fade and she will return happily to a life of performing on stage.
In her acting, Jessica is a professional. She enjoys playing a wide range of characters and genre. She is pleased that the release of her earlier films were delayed until she had the chance to play a number of roles to reduce the likelihood of being type-casted. She throws herself into every part by doing extensive research for each role and dissolving into the character. She commits to the character even if it means gaining weight or learning German. Jessica is alert to her directors and considers them to be her teachers. She likes interesting and complex roles and does not seem drawn to 'easy' ones. She has confidence in herself as an actor, but still feels like a newbie in the movie world.
Jessica maintains a rather simple lifestyle. She follows the advice of actress Cherry Jones from her Julliard days. Jessica quotes Jones as saying, "If you get a $100 or a $1000, you are still going to spend it." Jones said that if one makes lifestyle decisions based on the money, then they must must continue making the money to maintain the lifestyle, but if they keep a lower lifestyle, then they can choose jobs based on creativity and challenge rather than money. In fact, during Jessica's early career, she often lived on credit cards, paying them off when she got a role and using them again until she secured another role, but she has not had to do that since Tree of Life. She delights in choosing roles for her own reasons and not for the money.
One might say that Jessica is earth-friendly. In addition to being vegan in diet, she does not use leather, and she practices yoga. She has three dogs and drives a Prius. She enjoys playing the ukulele, in part because it is easy to pack, and she once performed with it at a Halloween party dressed as Spock. More recently, Jessica has guarded against becoming 'tabloid fodder' by not creating press opportunities with behavior that has nothing to do with film, such as going dancing at night clubs.
We look forward to learning more about Jessica as a person as she continues her successful career.
At Julliard, Jessica performed in a number of productions:
After Julliard, Jessica performed in a number of plays professionally:
Where Do We Live (April 2004, Off-Broadway's Vineyard Theatre). Playbill and another source announced Jessica's casting in this project, but on the third day of rehearsal she was called back to LA to shoot the pilot for Dark Shadows. Therefore, she was unable to appear in the play.
Madame Bovary (February 2006, Signature Theatre Company). Jessica was part of the cast in this reading, which was scheduled for two reading performances. The audience was by invitation only.
with Al Pacino discussing the production, accompanied by scenes from Jessica's performance. Othello (September 2009, New York University Skirball Center). Jessica plays Desdemona, Othello's wife, in this four-hour event. Other cast includes Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz. Director Peter Sellars gives this Shakespearean work a modern perspective, but his direction received many unflattering reviews such as NY Times and Reuters. However, there were favorable reviews as well here, here, and here. The play ran in Austria and Germany earlier in 2009 before opening in New York.
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- ER (2004). The event that first won Jessica notice was the February 26, 2004 guest appearance on ER (Forgive and Forget). Interview magazine wrote, 'With one guest spot on ER, she had audiences' pulses racing.'
Dark Shadows (2004). Soon after ER, she won a regular role on Dark Shadows as Carolyn Stoddard, the daughter of matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Jessica shot the pilot, and a rough cut played at the 2005 Dark Shadows festival in Los Angeles. However, there was a change in directors and the show never aired on TV, even though WBAngel in order to not have two vampire series at once. had already cancelledDark Shadows and Veronica Mars - Veronica Mars (2004) (see full episode).
- Law and Order: Trial by Jury (2005 and 2006). Four episodes.
- Close to Home (2006).
- The Evidence (2006). Jessica was in the pilot episode.
- Blackbeard (2006). June 17-18, 2006 was the show date for her prominent role in the two-night TV movie Blackbeard. See more in Movie Roles below.
- Journeyman (2007) (see full episode). Jessica was on the set of Journeyman when she received a call to fly to Austin to meet Terrence Malick.
- Agatha Christie: Poirot (2010). Jessica plays English governess Mary Debenham in Murder on the Orient Express. This episode (season 12; episode 4) ran July 11, 2010 on PBS. See
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After Blackbeard, Jessica made a couple more TV guest appearances and did another play, but her major work became movies. According to Jessica, her first eleven films were made in this order: Wilde Salome, Stolen, Jolene, The Tree of Life, The Debt, Coriolanus, The Texas Killing Fields, Take Shelter, The Help, The Burial, and The Wettest County in the World. However, due to various factors, the movies released in a considerably different order.
Here is a more extensive list of her films in order of American release date:
Photos from the IMDb website, including some with Al Pacino.
Larger photo of Jessica after a serious vampire bite in Dark Shadows (scroll down to second photo on that page).
See thousands of photos of Jessica in dozens of categories. Nice site!
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