Offbeat & inspired
Chastain tackles roles in ‘Woman Walks Ahead,’ ‘It: Chapter 2’
NEW YORK — Jessica Chastain has forged a big-screen career by avoiding the expected to seek unusual, offbeat, even marginalized characters.
Think of her analyst in “Zero Dark Thirty,” the evil schemer of “Crimson Peak,” her powerful lobbyist in “Miss Sloane,” the portraitist who faced prejudice and hatred to paint Sitting Bull in “Woman Walks Ahead,” now streaming, or the traumatized child now grown in “It: Chapter 2,” which she's currently filming.
“I tend to get all those roles of women outside the stereotype,” a cheerful Jessica Chastain, 41, acknowledged during a Crosby Street Hotel interview.
Why she commits to any role is simple: “I always look at the stories being told.”
With “It: Chapter 2,” due next year and based on the Stephen King novel, “there are so many themes there. It's about magic being lost, the magic of childhood. And there's maybe this sinister feeling that's under the surface.
“And what can combat that? Probably the innocence of children.”
Even before “It” was a blockbuster last fall, Chastain knew she was coming onboard for the years-later sequel as grown-up Barbara Marsh.
That's because she had starred in director Andy Muschietti and his wife Barbara's first film, the horror hit “Mama.”
“They're like my family,” she said. “Before `It' was made, before Sophia (Lillis) was cast, Andy sent me a picture of her and said, `Hey! Look at this girl! She looks just like you.'
“When the movie was made, before it came out in theaters, they were so sweet. They had a screening for me and Barbara handed me a glass of red wine and they sat on both sides of me. So, taking this role is just like being with family.”
Chastain has also learned that when a film doesn't work or fails at the box office, what ultimately counts is “the experience” making it.
“Who knows what a movie is going to be? We could make a film that people don't get. Take `Miss Sloane.' I did that film (about a powerful Washington lobbyist, rent boys and scandal) and people were saying, `That's way too powerful for politics. Politics aren't that dramatic. People don't lie and spy.' ”
Chastain smiled and shook her head. “So sometimes movies are ahead. You can't tell — except for the experience making it. `Woman Walks Ahead' I can tell you was an incredible experience for that.”