4 LEGS OR 2, EVERYONE LOVES CHASTAIN
‘ Zookeeper’s Wife’ director says star charmed all beasts
Jessica Chastain, animal whisperer.
The Oscar- nominated actress has a way with lion cubs, zebras and all manner of critters in “The Zookeeper’s Wife.” It opens March 31 but will screen at 7 p. m. Saturday at AMC River East as part of the JCC Chicago Jewish Film Festival ( jccchicago. org).
“There wasn’t a creature on that set, human or animal, that she couldn’t mesmerize,” director Niki Caro (“Whale Rider”) says of Chastain.
“The Zookeeper’s Wife” is based on Diane Ackerman’s 2007 book about Antonina and Jan Zabinski’s real- life efforts to save Jews in Poland during World War II.
Jan ( Belgian actor Johan Heldenbergh) was running the Warsaw Zoo, and wife Antonina ( Chastain) took care of ailing animals in their villa when the city was bombed in 1939. The zoo was obliterated, many animals were killed, and the Zabinskis convinced a former associate of theirs, Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck ( Daniel Brühl), to keep the place open as a pig farm.
But he was unaware that the Zabinskis were also using it as a sanctuary for Jews, hiding them in the cages, tunnels and basements where the creatures once lived. They saved more than 300 people.
“Some stayed just a night, some stayed for years,” Caro said, “but the risk was just astonishing.”
While Chastain is known for playing strong- willed characters, Caro says she brings a “tremendous delicacy” to Antonina, a woman who was good with zoo creatures but not so much with people before they started their rescue missions. “We see Antonina caring for her guests with the same tenderness and respect that she treated animals.”