JESSICA CHASTAIN

‘I LOOK AT THE ROLES I TAKE LIKE POLITICAL FILMMAKING. I TRY TO PUT OUT THINGS THAT CREATE A POSITIVE IMPACT’

Look! I’m touching you!” laughs Jessica Chastain as she nudges her foot companionably against Total Film’s when we meet in a suite in The Soho Hotel in late September. For many months, both Chastain and Total Film have conducted interviews digitally and this is one of the first ‘in-person’ chats either of us have had. Although strict testing/ masking protocols are in place, Chastain – warm and enthusiastic – can’t resist reaching across the stretch of socially distanced carpet to physically engage.

It’s a move that’s in keeping with the famously tactile person she plays in her latest film, real-life TV evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. A Christian star in the ‘80s, Bakker rebelled against her conservative industry and famously talked to and touched Aids sufferers – promoting acceptance, kindness and comfort towards those traditionally shut out of the ministry. Attracted to the idea of a woman who “wore her heart on her sleeve”, Chastain had bought the rights to Bakker’s story back in 2012, taking seven years to finally make it – through her own production company, Freckle Films – as The Eyes Of Tammy Faye. And in talking to the 44-year-old Californian during an hour, it’s clear that the promotion of kindness is something of a theme in her artistic output.

A graduate of Julliard (she was classmates with regular co-star Oscar Isaac), Chastain really arrived in 2011, with her first major roles as Michael Shannon’s supportive wife in Take Shelter and as the angelic, nurturing mother in Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life. Both films and many of the projects that followed (The Help, Interstellar, Crimson Peak, Scenes From A Marriage) have delved into the power – sometimes without rationale, sometimes elusive, sometimes across time and space – of love.

“As we’ve talked,” she muses, tucking that famous red hair behind a porcelain ear, “there’s a lot of movies I’ve done like that. leads to , leads to . There is definitely a through-line in my characters about understanding the importance of connection, and that we are, by nature, communal – we need to connect.” She can also tap into her badass side (, , , , ) but