If you think you have seen this beautiful red headed women before, its probably because you have. She’s one of the best working actresses in Hollywood. She came to prominence in 2011 when she portrayed (Celia Foote) in The Help. She was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as this southern bell. Who needed help learning to cook so she could make her husband happy. She lost the Oscar that year to Octavia Spencer who portrayed the maid (Minny Jackson), who helped her become. a better cook in the kitchen. That same year Chastain starred in a few more lower profile roles. Take Shelter she starred with Micheal Shannon as his wife who has to live with a man obsessed with building a fallout shelter. Also that year she starred in a supporting role as a Mossad agent (Young Rachel Singer) sent to east Berlin in the 1960’s to capture a Nazi doctor accused of crime’s against society. Helen Mirron played the older character. The same year Chastain played the wife of Brad Pitt (Mrs. O’Brien) in the Terrance Malick masterpiece The Tree of Life. She played a (Detective Sam Stall) trying to solve a murder in The Texas Killing Fields earlier in the year.
2012 would be another good year for her because she once again was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as Maya special ops agent in Zero Dark Thirty. She Also played the wife (Maggie Bauford) of Tom Hardy in Lawless a period piece set in the 1920’s prohibition era. A women with vast range she also played the mother (Annabel) dressed as a rocker with short black hair. She tried to save her children from the titular title character in Mama. That year she would have the number 1 and 2 movies at the box office at the same time in January.
This year Jessica Chastain has another epic year ahead of her with roles in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby as the wife of a man (Eleanor) who has gone through a tragedy trying to piece they’re marriage back together.
Later in November she plays the older version of (Murph) the daughter of Matthew McConaughey’s character Cooper in Interstellar. The Sci-Fi epic from director Christopher Nolan.
In December she stars along with Oscar Isaac as his wife (Anna Morales) in a crime drama set during the early 80’s in New York. She also has role in Miss Julie, The Zookeepers Wife and Crimson Peak in her future. Richard Roeper said back in 2011 that “Jessica Chastain is one of the best actresses of her generation”. From all these great performances and different roles she has shown that she definitely has what it takes to become the greatest actress of her generation. The future will see if that happens. The dreaded Oscar drought has only been a few years so this year could be that year she wins and puts herself in the conversation as one of the best talents we have. I for one am looking forward to all these movies she has coming.
Dan Skip Allen
From the Fourth Row! 