Jessica Michelle Chastain (born March 24, 1977) is an American actress and producer. Known for primarily starring in projects with feminist themes, she has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, in addition to nominations for two Tony Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.
She made her film debut in Dan Ireland’s Jolene (2008), with Dermot Mulroney, Chazz Palminteri, Rupert Friend, Denise Richards, Michael Vartan, Frances Fisher, and Theresa Russell. Other early films include Stolen (2009), with Josh Lucas, Jon Hamm, Rhona Mitra, James Van Der Beek, and Morena Baccarin; and John Madden’s The Debt (2010), with Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Wilkinson, Marton Csokas, Jesper Christensen, Marton Csokas, Romi Aboulafia, and Yonatan Uziel.
She received her first Academy Award nomination (for Best Supporting Actress) for Tate Taylor’s The Help (2011), with Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Allison Janney, Cicely Tyson, and Sissy Spacek. Other films from that year include Jeff Nichols’s Take Shelter (2011), with Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon, and Kathy Baker; Coriolanus (2011), with Ralph Fiennes (who also directed), Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, John Kani, James Nesbitt, Paul Jesson, Lubna Azabal, and Ashraf Barhom; Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011), with Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, and Tye Sheridan; Wilde Salomé (2011), with Al Pacino (who also directed), Kevin Anderson, Estelle Parsons, Roxanne Hart, and Jack Huston; and Ami Canaan Mann’s Texas Killing Fields (2011), with Worthington, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jason Clarke, Annabeth Gish, Sheryl Lee, and Stephen Graham.
She received her second Academy Award nomination (her first in the Best Actress category) for Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012), with Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Reda Kateb, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Kyle Chandler, Stephen Dillane, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramírez, Fares Fares, Jennifer Ehle, John Barrowman, Mark Duplass, Harold Perrineau, and Frank Grillo. Other films from this year include a voice role in Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012), with Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knights, John DiMaggio, Conrad Vernon, Bryan Cranston, Martin Short, and Frances McDormand; John Hillcoat’s Lawless (2012), with Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Clarke, and Guy Pearce; and The Color of Time (2012), with James Franco, Mila Kunis, Zach Braff, Henry Hopper, and Bruce Campbell.
Other films in the 2010s include Andy Muschietti’s Mana (2013), with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nélisse, Daniel Kash, and Javier Botet; Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rugby (2013), with James McAvoy, Davis, Bill Hader, Katherine Waterston, Hinds, Isabelle Huppert, Jess Weixler, and William Hurt; Liv Ullman’s Miss Julie (2014), with Colin Farrell l and Samantha Morton; Christopher Nolan’s Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Matt Damon, and Michael Caine; J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), with Oscar Isaac, David Oyelowo, Alessandro Nivola, and Albert Brooks; Ridley Scott’s The Martian (2015), with Damon, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Mackenzie Davis, Donald Glover, and Benedict Wong; and Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak (2015), with Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Burn Gorman, and Jim Beaver.
Films in the mid to late 2010s include The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016), with Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Nick Frost, Sam Claflin, and Rob Brydon; Miss Sloane (2016), with Mark Strong, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alison Pill, Jake Lacy, John Lithgow, and Sam Waterston; Nicki Caro’s The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017), with Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl and Michael McElhatton; Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game (2017), with Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, Michael Cera, Jeremy Strong, Chris O’Dowd, Joe Keery, Brian D’Arcy James, and Bill Camp; Susanna White’s Woman Walks Ahead (2017), with Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer and Sam Rockwell; X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), with McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Sophie Turner, Sheridan, and Alexandra Shipp; and It Chapter Two (2019), with McAvoy, Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Nicholas Hamilton, Molly Atkinson, Stephen Bogaert, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Joe Bostick, and Megan Charpentier.
She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in Michael Showalter’s The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), with Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, and Vincent D’Onofrio. Other films in the 2020s include Ava (2020), with John Malkovich, Common, Geena Davis, Farrell, Ioan Gruffudd, and Joan Chen; John Michael McDonagh’s The Forgiven (2021), with Fiennes, Matt Smith, Ismael Kanater, Caleb Landry Jones, Abbey Lee, Mourad Zaoui, Marie-Josée Croze, Alex Jennings, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Christopher Abbott; The 355 (2022), with Penélope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, Edgar Ramírez, Stan, and Jason Flemyng; a cameo in James Gray’s Armageddon Time (2022), with Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, and Anthony Hopkins; Tobias Lindholm’s The Good Nurse (2022), with Eddie Redmayne, Nnamdi Asomugha, Kim Dickens, and Noah Emmerich; Michael Franco’s Memory (2023), with Peter Sarsgaard, Merritt Wever, Brooke Timber, Elsie Fisher, Josh Charles, and Jessica Harper; Mothers’ Instinct (2024), with Hathaway, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Josh.
Miniseries include Kevin Connor’s Blackbeard (2006), with Angus Macfadyen, Mark Umbers, Richard Chamberlain, Stacy Keach, Clement von Franckenstein, and Rachel Ward; Hagai Levi’s Scenes from a Marriage (2021), with Isaac, Nicole Beharie, Corey Stoll, Sunita Martin, Shirley Rumierk, Sophia Kopera, Anna Rust, and Michael Aloni; George & Tammy (2022 – 2023), with Shannon, Steve Zahn, David Wilson Barnes, Walton Goggins, Kelly McCormack, Katy Mixon, and Tim Blake Nelson.
Each review will be linked to the title below.
(*seen originally in theaters)
(**seen rereleased in theaters)
- Blackbeard (2006) – Kevin Connor – miniseries
- Jolene (2008) – directed by Dan Ireland
- Stolen (2009) – directed by Anders Anderson
- The Westerner (2010) – directed by Ned Benson – short
- The Debt (2010) – directed by John Madden
- Take Shelter (2011) – directed by Jeff Nichols
- Coriolanus (2011) – directed by Ralph Fiennes
- The Tree of Life (2011) – directed by Terrence Malick
- The Help (2011) – directed by Tate Taylor
- Wilde Salomé (2011) – directed by Al Pacino
- Texas Killing Fields (2011) – directed by Ami Canaan Mann
- Touch of Evil (2011) – directed by Alex Prager – short
- Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) – directed by Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon, & Tom McGrath
- Lawless (2012) – directed by John Hillcoat
- The Color of Tine (2012) – directed by Edna Luise Biesold, Sarah-Violet Bliss, Gabrielle Demeestere, Alexis Gambis, Shruti Ganguly, Brooke Goldfinch, Shripriya Mahesh, Pamela Romanowsky, Bruce Thierry Cheung, Tine Thomasen, Virginia Urreiztieta, & Omar Zúñiga Hidalgo
- Zero Dark Thirty (2012) – directed by Kathryn Bigelow
- Mama (2013) – directed by Andy Muschietti
- Salomé (2013) – directed by Al Pacino
- The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him (2013) – directed by Ned Benson – also co-producer
- The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her (2013) – directed by Ned Benson – also co-producer
- The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014) – directed by Ned Benson – also co-producer
- Miss Julie (2014) – directed by Liv Ullmann
- Interstellar (2014) – directed by Christopher Nolan
- A Most Violent Year (2014) – directed by J.C. Chandor
- Unity (2015 ) – directed by Shaun Monson – narrator – documentary
- Ares III: Farewell (2015) – directed by Luke Scott – shirt
- Ares III: The Right Stuff (2015) – directed by Luke Scott – short
- The Martian (2015)* – directed by Ridley Scott
- Crimson Peak (2015)* – directed by Guillermo del Toro
- The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016) – directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan
- Miss Sloane (2016) – directed by John Madden
- I Am Jane Doe (2017) – directed by Mary Mazzio – narrator, executive producer – documentary
- The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017) – directed by Niki Caro – also executive producer
- I Am Little Red (2017) – directed by Mary Mazzio, Gabriel Osorio Vargas, & Alec Sokolow – short
- Molly’s Game (2017) – directed by Aaron Sorkin
- Woman Walks Ahead (2017) – directed by Susanna White
- This Changes Everything (2018) – directed by Tom Donahue – herself – documentary
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) – directed by Simon Kinberg
- It Chapter Two (2019) – directed by Andy Muschietti
- Creating a Character: The Moni Yakim Legacy (2020) – directed by Rauzar Alexander – herself, executive producer – documentary
- Ava (2020) – directed by Tate Taylor – also producer
- Scenes from a Marriage (2021) – directed by Hagai Levi – also executive producer – miniseries
- The Forgiven (2021) – directed by John Michael McDonagh
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) – directed by Michael Showalter – also producer
- The Sands Between (2021) – directed by Aidan Tanner – short
- The 355 (2022) – directed by Simon Kinberg – also producer
- Armageddon Time (2022) – directed by James Gray – cameo
- The Good Nurse (2022) – directed by Tobias Lindholm
- George & Tammy (2022 – 2023) – directed by John Hillcoat – also executive producer – miniseries
- Memory (2023) – directed by Michel Franco
- Mothers’ Instinct (2024) – directed by Benoît Delhomme – also producer
- Lear Rex (202-) – directed by Bernard Rose
- Dreams (202-) – directed by Michel Franco
- The Savant (202-) – directed by Matthew Heineman – also executive producer – miniseries
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