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In the new gripping series &ldquo;The Savant,&rdquo; produced by her production company, Freckle Films, Jessica Chastain, the American actress, winner of an Oscar for &ldquo;The Eyes of Tammy Faye&rdquo; and a Golden Globe for &ldquo;Zero Dark Thirty,&rdquo; prepares to tackle the most challenging role of her entire career.
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<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"> Text by JENNIFER SWANN Photography JUANKR Styling Sarah Gore Reeves</div></div></div>

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><div style="text-align: justify;"> It&#39;s past 8.30pm on a Wednesday in June and &nbsp; <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/moda/jessica-chastain-attrice-chi-e-vita-privata-cover-centenario-l-officiel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jessica Chastain</a> &nbsp; She&#39;s recovering from a day of filming on the east coast of Ireland. Her tousled red hair, glowing skin, and big smile don&#39;t suggest she&#39;s just stepped off the set of a horror film. Chastain, who previously starred in &nbsp; “It: Chapter Two” &nbsp; and in spooky paranormal thrillers like &nbsp; “Crimson Peak” &nbsp; And &nbsp; “Mama”, &nbsp; She&#39;s always had an affinity for the kind of film where there&#39;s a girl who &quot;gets away with it in the end.&quot; &nbsp; «When I was a child, there weren&#39;t many interesting female characters, only the horror genre had women defeating monsters and winning in the end», &nbsp; says Jessica Chastain via Zoom. For over a decade, the 48-year-old classically trained actress has defined her career by playing the kind of extremely &nbsp; capable yet complicated, the kind she rarely saw on screen as a child. In 2013, her role as a CIA agent in Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” earned her a <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/pop-culture/attori-vincitori-golden-globe-2024-premi-film" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Golden Globe</a> and kicked off a string of portrayals of highly skilled experts working in or attempting to influence the US government: a NASA scientist in “Interstellar,” a military commander in “The Martian,” and a ruthless Washington lobbyist in “Miss Sloane.” She then played a professional skier turned illegal gambling impresario (“Molly’s Game”) and two different Tammys: country singer Wynette ( “George &amp; Tammy” ) and TV evangelist Faye Bakker ( “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” ). A role that earned her the <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/news/jessica-chastain-vince-il-premio-oscar-come-miglior-attrice-protagonista-discorso" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Academy Award for Best Actress in 2022.</a></div></div></div></div>

Dress and sculptural shoes, MARC JACOBS; white gold and diamond bracelets, DAMIANI.

<div style="text-align: justify;"> Chastain&#39;s character in the upcoming Apple TV+ series “The Savant” is also based on the life of a real person with exceptional talent, even if she isn&#39;t famous and is desperately trying to avoid discovery. Not even her own friends and family know what she does for a living, and her job often requires her to exchange provocative messages with unknown men online. The Savant, as her colleagues call her, is an investigator tasked with monitoring the activities of and infiltrating extremist groups made up of mostly white, working-class men who have become radicalized online and who, in reality, plot hate crimes, terrorist attacks, and mass shootings. “This woman&#39;s story really moved me,” says Chastain, who also produced the series through her production company, Freckle Films . “The idea that she spends most of her time reading these incredibly sexist, racist, horrible hate-filled comments, and that she has to somehow slip into a similar character to navigate those waters, but that she does it for the greater good, I found really compelling.” Chastain first heard about the woman in a 2019 Cosmopolitan article. She recalls thinking, &quot;Wow. This is a badass.&quot; The article, written by then-Cosmopolitan editor Andrea Stanley, described her as a former Marine turned cop who developed a knack for operating undercover in dangerous situations. She eventually left the force and put her skills to use as an investigator for the Anti-Defamation League, a self-described nongovernmental organization that calls itself a leader in monitoring and combating extremism. In the eight-episode series inspired by the article, elements of Chastain&#39;s character, including her backstory and workplace, were fictionalized, partly to protect the real investigator&#39;s identity and partly because it makes the series more compelling.</div>

Double-breasted jacket and skirt, GIVENCHY BY SARAH BURTON; diamond rings, DAMIANI.

However, Chastain and her producing partner, Kelly Carmichael , consulted with the FBI and other law enforcement sources, &quot;to make sure we were doing everything by the book, as they would have done,&quot; Carmichael says. Chastain says she spoke with the woman who inspired the series, but was careful not to recreate her dialect, so as not to give away any hint of the region she&#39;s from. (The Cosmopolitan article also identifies her only as living in a small town.) Instead of methodically studying her mannerisms, Chastain asked the investigator more subtle things, like what music she listens to and how she feels about her job. &quot;Then, during hair and makeup, I would listen to her favorite song.&quot; She doesn&#39;t want to name the song, out of respect for their private conversation, but says it&#39;s part of her extensive country music repertoire. &quot;Listening to the music she likes connects me to our conversation and the things she talked about. It helps me feel the character in my skin.&quot; An approach derived from her education at Juilliard, where she was accepted thanks to a scholarship funded by Robin Williams (who had been an alumnus).

She often thinks back to an “invaluable” character-building class she took as a freshman in 1999. “I remember there were a lot of students who didn’t like the class and didn’t understand it, but I realized that if I wanted to play characters who moved, talked, and behaved differently than me, I had to figure out what those differences were,” says Chastain, who received an honorary doctorate from Juilliard last year. “I’m supposed to see the character as an entity not separate from me, but does that really mean thinking about their favorite food, their favorite music, their smell? What are their childhood memories of their mother?” Winner of an Oscar for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”, after two nominations for “The Help” and “Zero Dark Thirty” , of a Golden Globe for “Zero Dark Thirty” - in total she has been nominated for the award 8 times -, the actress is a global ambassador for the clean beauty brand True Botanicals , has been the protagonist of a Gucci campaign, as well as being a loyal supporter of the fashion house for years, she is a global ambassador for Damiani . Married to Italian Gian Luca Passi , she has three children, born via surrogacy. Chastain knew she wanted to be an actress at the age of 15. She went to see Richard III (played by Juilliard alumnus Marco Barricelli) at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and recalls being struck by the visceral realization that &quot;it was the sexiest thing I&#39;d ever seen. He was so incredibly sexy when he performed it, it was really shocking to me... It made me feel older. It made me feel like an adult.&quot;

&quot;When I was a child, there were no female characters of any interest.&quot; Jessica Chastain

Bustier dress in tartan fabric and crinoline, THOM BROWNE; bracelet, DAMIANI.

But Chastain&#39;s path to Juilliard wasn&#39;t traditional. She ended up dropping out of high school, becoming so fascinated with Shakespeare that she skipped class to read his works. &quot;It wasn&#39;t a lofty, you know, intellectual thing. It was just the physical excitement of the language and that production and that particular play that made me want to read more. Shakespeare was to me what romance novels were to my peers, you know what I mean?&quot; Chastain eventually graduated and enrolled at community college in Sacramento, where she grew up. She always thought she&#39;d one day move to Hollywood to work in film, but a trip to New York at 18 changed her mind. &quot;I have a picture of me walking out of Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School behind me, and I had no idea I&#39;d go there to build a future for myself,&quot; says Chastain, who still says she wears an I LOVE NY baseball cap and prefers the subway. &quot;It was love at first sight. I knew it was for me.” (Besides, he laughs in retrospect, “they don’t make enough movies in Los Angeles anymore” ). After graduating from Juilliard, Chastain landed small parts on television series like “ER” and “Law &amp; Order,” only years later landing prominent roles in “Take Shelter,” “The Tree of Life,” and “The Help,” all released in 2011; the latter two earned Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and Chastain herself was nominated for “The Help.” Her performances that year couldn’t have been more diverse or more acclaimed, but in each of them, Chastain, then thirty-four, played a devoted housewife.

Rope dress, LOEWE; rings, DAMIANI.

She was a budding movie megastar , having been profiled by the New York Times and featured in its Hollywood issue , but the roles flooding her inbox were all the same: &quot;The supportive wife rooting for the male character who does the interesting stuff.&quot; Her reaction? Seeking out scripts in which she played unlikable, uncompromising, and even evil women (and that&#39;s where the horror films &quot;Mama&quot; and &quot;Crimson Peak&quot; came from). As she gained more influence in the industry, she advocated for broader and more diverse roles for women and people of color: &quot;This was before Me Too, before Time&#39;s Up...&quot; In 2016, she decided to launch her own production company. Freckle Films, with a stated mission to develop material centered around female and underrepresented characters, has produced television works (“George &amp; Tammy”), feature films (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”), and a scripted podcast with Audible (“The Space Within”). “We’re always looking for material to explore women’s stories and work with female directors,” says Carmichael, president of production and development at Freckle Films, who adds that Chastain is intimately involved in reading scripts and making observations. “Because we’re a small company, everything we take on has to be something we’re truly passionate about, because for us it’s not about the number of things we develop, but about quality rather than quantity.” In the nearly decade since Freckle Films was founded, the film industry has changed dramatically, as has the culture surrounding it. The Me Too movement has received backlash, and broader efforts toward inclusion and diversity have largely stalled or swung in the opposite direction. But Chastain isn’t discouraged. “I haven’t encountered any negative reactions yet, and I say this touching wood, because I think I reach out to people with really interesting ideas , things that are interesting to me first. I guide my choices by saying we need to make more films with female characters , and that’s why we’re making this project. We choose what we consider to be an incredible story. I’m still a creator first and foremost. But I can create as a political act.”

&quot;For me, reading Shakespeare was like reading romance novels for my peers.&quot; Jessica Chastain

Jacket and skirt with rectangular sequins, ERDEM.

The film industry has also suffered a significant contraction, with fewer projects being made and studios less willing to greenlight films and television shows they consider risky to their profits. &quot;There are so many talented people behind the scenes who are really struggling to support their families and make a living in this industry. That&#39;s something I hope we can change.&quot; Meanwhile, he hopes that the increased tax incentives for production in New York, approved by the governor in May, will attract many more film and television projects to the state, where he lives and often works. (&quot;The Savant,&quot; filmed in the first half of last year following the writers&#39; and actors&#39; strikes, was shot on a soundstage in Queens and on locations upstate.) Chastain, at least for the foreseeable future, already has a busy schedule. “Dreams,” the erotic drama in which she stars alongside Mexican dancer Isaac Hernández—the film explores “very timely” themes like immigration—is slated for release this fall. Meanwhile, she&#39;s set to co-host, with Adam Driver, a show for Apple TV+ focused on the fine arts market, co-produced with Freckle Films. That&#39;s not to mention the myriad projects in which she&#39;s not acting, such as the upcoming Netflix thriller she&#39;s co-producing with star Tessa Thompson. Furthermore, Chastain hopes to return to the theater (which she&#39;s never been away from for long; in 2023, she played the title role in Henrik Ibsen&#39;s “A Doll&#39;s House” on Broadway) to take on her dream role : Hedda Gabler in Ibsen&#39;s play of the same name.

Dress, ERDEM; watches, OMEGA.

L'OFFICIEL Italia - Jessica Chastain

<div class="page" title="Page 5"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"> HAIR: Renato Campora @ KALPANA MAKE UP: Kristofer Buckle @ OPUS BEAUTY PRODUCTION: Danielle Ellsworth PHOTO ASSISTANT: Beka Maglakelidze STYLING ASSISTANT: B Dominguez, Grace Cardozo and Rickey Webster</div></div></div>

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