In a gripping new series from her production company, the Oscar-winning actor takes on her most complicated role yet.

PHOTOGRAPHY Juankr&nbsp;
STYLED BY Sarah Gore Reeves
It&rsquo;s after 8:30 p.m. on a Wednesday in June, and Jessica Chastain is winding down from a day of filming on the eastern coast of Ireland. Her tousled strawberry-colored hair, glowing skin, and big smile give no indication that she&rsquo;s just come from the set of a horror movie. Chastain, who previously starred in the nightmare-inducing It: Chapter Two and spooky supernatural thrillers like Crimson Peak and Mama, has always had an affinity for the genre and its prevalent &ldquo;final girl&rdquo; trope.&nbsp;
&ldquo;When I was a kid, there weren&rsquo;t a lot of powerful female characters, but the horror genre always had the female characters defeat the monsters and win at the end,&rdquo; Chastain says over Zoom.
For well over a decade, the 48-year-old classically trained actor has defined her career by portraying the kinds of extremely capable yet complicated women she too rarely saw onscreen as a child. In 2013, her role as a CIA agent in Zero Dark Thirty scored her a Golden Globe award as well as her second Academy Award nomination, and set her on a streak of playing highly skilled experts either working in or attempting to influence the U.S. government: a NASA scientist in Interstellar, a military commander in The Martian, and a cutthroat D.C. lobbyist in Miss Sloane.
More recently, she&rsquo;s undergone radical transformations into real-life powerhouses, including a professional skier&ndash;turned&ndash;illegal gambling impresario (Molly&rsquo;s Game) and two different troubled Tammys: the country singer Wynette (George &amp; Tammy) and the TV evangelist Faye Bakker (The Eyes of Tammy Faye). The latter role, for which Chastain rarely broke character on set, earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2022.&nbsp;

jessica chastain

Chastain&rsquo;s titular character in the Apple TV+ series The Savant, due out this month, is also based on a real person with an exceptional talent&mdash;albeit one who is not famous and is, in fact, trying desperately not to be discovered. Even her own friends and family members don&rsquo;t know what she does for a living, or that it often involves exchanging provocative messages with strange men on the Internet. The Savant, as her colleagues call her, is a secret investigator tasked with monitoring the activities of and infiltrating domestic extremist and hate groups&mdash;primarily made up of working-class white men who became radicalized online and who in the show plot hate crimes, terror attacks, and mass shootings.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I was really moved by this woman&rsquo;s story,&rdquo; says Chastain, who also executive produced the series with her production company, Freckle Films. &ldquo;This idea that she spends most of her time having to read these incredibly sexist and racist and horrible comments of hate and she has to kind of slip into a character to navigate those waters, but she&rsquo;s doing it all for the greater good&mdash;I found that really compelling.&rdquo;&nbsp;

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Chastain first heard about the woman in a Cosmopolitan magazine article published in 2019. She remembers thinking to herself, Wow. She&rsquo;s a badass. The article, written by Cosmo&rsquo;s then&ndash;Features Director Andrea Stanley, describes the so-called savant as a former marine&ndash;turned-cop who developed a knack for going undercover in dicey situations. She eventually left the force and put her skills to use as an investigator for the Anti-Defamation League, a non-governmental organization that bills itself as a leader in monitoring and countering extremism.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The horror genre always had the female characters defeat the monsters and win at the end.&nbsp;

In the eight-episode series inspired by the article, elements of Chastain&rsquo;s character, including her backstory and workplace, have been fictionalized&mdash;in part to protect the real investigator's identity, and in part because it just makes for better television. Still, the show&rsquo;s creative team consulted with FBI and other law enforcement sources, &ldquo;to just help make sure we were doing everything by the book as they would,&rdquo; says Chastain&rsquo;s producing partner, Kelly Carmichael.&nbsp;

jessica chastain interview 'the savant' tv series

Chastain says she spoke with the woman who inspired the series, but was careful not to recreate her dialect, so as not to give away any hint of the region where she&rsquo;s from. (Even the Cosmo article only identifies her as living in a small town, hidden in plain sight among sprawling cul-de-sacs and big-box stores.)&nbsp;
Instead of methodically studying her mannerisms, Chastain asked the investigator about more subtle things, like the music she listens to and how she feels about her work. &ldquo;Then, in hair and makeup, I would listen to her favorite song,&rdquo; she says. She won&rsquo;t name the song, out of respect for their private conversation, but she does say that the investigator likes country music. &ldquo;Listening to the music she likes connects me to our conversation and to the stuff she told me about,&rdquo; Chastain says, adding, &ldquo;It helps me to have the character live in the skin, I guess you could say.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Her approach comes from her schooling at Juilliard, where she was accepted on a scholarship funded by Robin Williams (the late actor also attended on scholarship). She thinks back often to an &ldquo;invaluable&rdquo; course on crafting characters that she took when she was a freshman in 1999. &ldquo;I remember there were a lot of students in the class who didn&rsquo;t like the course and didn&rsquo;t get it, but very early on I got it and I understood if I wanted to play characters that moved and spoke and behaved differently than me, that I would have to find out what our differences were,&rdquo; says Chastain, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by Juilliard last year. &ldquo;I would have to really see the character as a separate entity than me, but that means really thinking about their favorite food, favorite music, what do they smell like? What are their childhood memories of their mother?&rdquo;&nbsp;

Chastain knew she wanted to be an actor by the age of 15. She&rsquo;d gone to see Richard III (played by Juilliard alum Marco Barricelli) at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and remembers being hit by the visceral realization that &ldquo;it was the sexiest thing I had ever seen,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;He was so unbelievably hot when he played it, it was really kind of shocking to me&hellip; it just made me feel older. It made me feel like an adult.&rdquo;&nbsp;
But Chastain&rsquo;s path to Juilliard wasn&rsquo;t a traditional one. She ended up dropping out of high school, becoming so engrossed in Shakespeare that she skipped classes to read his plays. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t like a lofty, you know, intellectual thing. It really was like this physical excitement about the language and about that production and that performance especially that led me to want to read more,&rdquo; she insists. &ldquo;Shakespeare was like my romance novels; you know what I mean?&rdquo;&nbsp;
Chastain eventually got her diploma and enrolled at community college in Sacramento, where she grew up. She always thought one day she&rsquo;d move to Hollywood to work in film, but a trip to New York at 18 changed her mind. &ldquo;I have a picture of me walking outside around Lincoln Center and you see The Juilliard School behind me, and I had no idea that I was going to go there for my future,&rdquo; says Chastain, who to this day says she wears an I LOVE NY baseball cap and still prefers to ride the subway. &ldquo;It was just love at first sight. I just knew it was for me.&rdquo; (Besides, she laughs, thinking about it now, &ldquo;they don&rsquo;t really make movies enough in Los Angeles&rdquo; anymore.)&nbsp;

After graduating from Juilliard, Chastain booked a few small parts on television shows like ER and Law &amp; Order, and years later scored breakout roles in Take Shelter, The Tree of Life, and The Help, all of which were released in 2011; the last two garnered Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and Chastain herself was nominated for The Help. Critics took notice. &ldquo;Has any young actress ever put together such a series of roles?&rdquo; Roger Ebert mused in a four-star review of Take Shelter. Meanwhile, in a New York Times profile, Margy Rochlin described Chastain&rsquo;s career trajectory as &ldquo;whizzing from unknown-ish actress with six completed movies waiting for release to Next Big Thing.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Shakespeare was like my romance novels; you know what I mean?&nbsp;

Her starring vehicles that year couldn&rsquo;t have been more different or more highly acclaimed, but in each, Chastain, then 34, played a character with at least one thing in common: They were all devoted housewives. Chastain was a newly minted mega-movie star, having also been featured in the New York Times magazine&rsquo;s Hollywood issue, but the roles that flooded her inbox were of a similar variety: &ldquo;The supportive wife who is there cheering on the male character who gets to do the interesting things,&rdquo; she says.&nbsp;

She began to seek out scripts where she could play unlikeable, uncompromising, even villainous women (enter: the horror movies Mama and Crimson Peak). As she gained more leverage in the industry, she became a vocal advocate for bigger and more diverse roles for women and people of color; &ldquo;This was before Me Too and Time&rsquo;s Up and all those things,&rdquo; she says. But it wasn&rsquo;t until she began to field questions about her plan of action, beyond navigating her own career, that she decided to launch her own production company, in 2016.&nbsp;
Freckle Films, with its stated mission of developing material centered on female and underrepresented characters, has since produced television (George &amp; Tammy), feature films (The Eyes of Tammy Faye), and a scripted podcast with Audible (The Space Within), among other projects. &ldquo;We are always looking for material to further female stories, to work with female directors,&rdquo; says Carmichael, president of production and development at Freckle Films, who adds that Chastain is intimately involved in reading scripts and giving notes. &ldquo;Because we are a smaller company, everything that we take on has to be something that we feel really passionate about because for us, it&rsquo;s not about the number of things we&rsquo;re developing; it&rsquo;s really about the quality over quantity.&rdquo;&nbsp;
In the nearly a decade since Freckle Films&rsquo; founding, the industry has shifted dramatically, and so has the culture around it. The Me Too movement generated a backlash, and broader efforts toward inclusion and diversity have largely stalled or swung in the opposite direction. But Chastain isn&rsquo;t deterred.&nbsp;

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&ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t found any pushback&mdash;touch wood&mdash;as of yet, because I think I come to people with really interesting ideas, things that interest me, and I&rsquo;m not leading with We have to make more films with women, with female characters, and that&rsquo;s why we&rsquo;re making this. I&rsquo;m leading with This is an incredible story,&rdquo; says Chastain. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m still a creator first. But I can create as a political act.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The movie industry, too, has contracted significantly, with fewer projects getting made overall and studios less willing to greenlight movies and television shows they see as risks to their bottom lines. &ldquo;There are so many talented people behind the scenes who are really struggling with how to support their families and make a living in this industry,&rdquo; says Chastain. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something that I hope we&rsquo;re able to change.&rdquo;&nbsp;

I'm still a creator first. But I can create as a political act.&nbsp;

In the meantime, she&rsquo;s hopeful that New York&rsquo;s increased tax incentives for production, approved by the governor in May, will lure more film and TV projects to the state, where she lives and frequently works. (The Savant, filmed during the first half of last year, following the writers&rsquo; and actors&rsquo; strikes, was shot on a soundstage in Queens and on location upstate).&nbsp;

Chastain, at least for the foreseeable future, is staying exceptionally busy. Dreams, the erotic drama she stars in opposite Mexican ballet dancer Isaac Hern&aacute;ndez&mdash;the film explores &ldquo;very timely&rdquo; issues of immigration, she says&mdash;is expected to be released this fall. Meanwhile, she&rsquo;s set to lead, alongside Adam Driver, the Apple TV+ show The Dealer, centered on the fine art market; she&rsquo;s executive producing with Freckle Films. And that&rsquo;s not counting the myriad projects she isn&rsquo;t acting in&mdash;like the forthcoming Netflix thriller she&rsquo;s executive producing with lead actor Tessa Thompson. Plus, Chastain hopes to return to the theater (she&rsquo;s never away for long; in 2023, she earned a Tony nomination as the lead in Henrik Ibsen&rsquo;s A Doll&rsquo;s House on Broadway) to assume her dream role: Hedda Gabler in Ibsen&rsquo;s play of the same name.&nbsp;

It helps me to have the character live in the skin, I guess you could say.&nbsp;

But for now, Chastain is in the middle of production, presumably warding off an evil spirit in the Irish countryside. It&rsquo;s late there, and tomorrow is another day on set. She expresses gratitude for our conversation before logging off of Zoom. The screen goes dark, but it almost certainly won&rsquo;t be long before Chastain reappears on yet another screen&mdash;one much larger and far more dazzling.

Jessica Chastain Is the Ultimate Shapeshifter

HAIR: Renato Campora KALPANA
MAKEUP: Kristofer Buckle OPUS BEAUTY
SET DESIGN: Catherine Pearson
CREATIVE CONSULTANT: Mariana Suplicy
PRODUCED BY: Danielle Ellsworth
 PHOTO ASSISTANT: Beka Maglakelidze
 SET ASSISTANT: Victoria Morris
 STYLING ASSISTANTS: B Dominguez and Ricky Webster
LOCATION: <a href="http://77greenwich.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">77 Greenwich Street, Downtown NYC</a>
SPECIAL THANKS TO: M18PR

Jessica Chastain Is the Ultimate Shapeshifter

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