Jessica Chastain

Chastain developed an interest in acting from an early age and made her professional stage debut in 1998 as Shakespeare's Juliet. After studying acting at the Juilliard School, she worked on television and stage. After making her film debut at age 31 in the drama Jolene (2008), Chastain had her breakthrough in 2011 with six film releases, including the dramas Take Shelter (2011) and The Tree of Life (2011). She received Academy Award nominations for playing an aspiring socialite in the period drama The Help (2011) and a CIA analyst in the thriller Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

Greater commercial success came with the science fiction films Interstellar (2014) and The Martian (2015), and the horror film It Chapter Two (2019). Chastain received further acclaim for playing strong-willed women in the dramas A Most Violent Year (2014), Miss Sloane (2016), and Molly's Game (2017), and the television miniseries Scenes from a Marriage (2021). She went on to portray Tammy Faye Bakker in the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, and Tammy Wynette in the miniseries George & Tammy (2022).

On Broadway, Chastain has starred in revivals of The Heiress (2012) and A Doll's House (2023). The latter earned her a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. She is the founder of the production company Freckle Films, which was created to promote diversity in film, and is an investor in the soccer club Angel City FC.

Chastain will next executive produce and star in the Apple TV+ miniseries The Savant, based on the true story of an investigator who infiltrates online hate groups. She will also reunite with Pacino in Lear Rex, an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, playing Goneril. She will also star in the upcoming supernatural horror film Other Mommy directed by Rob Savage, based on the 2024 novel Incidents Around the House by Josh Malerman.