The televangelist biopic “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is in theaters now and generating Oscar buzz for actress Jessica Chastain. Doing the press rounds to help promote her Toronto International Film Festival-premiering film, the actress recently spoke with host Josh Horowitz on his podcast Happy Sad Confused (listen below). Topics ranged, and she did reveal the director and co-star of her upcoming Tammy Wynette limited series (John Hillcoat and Michael Shannon), but of course, she couldn’t help but field questions about superheroes and that milieu, given her various experiences.
Happy Sad Confused pointed out both her “Scenes From A Marriage Story” co-star and longtime Juilliard friend Oscar Isaac played “X-Men” supervillains, seemingly trying to segue to talk about her experience on Simon Kinberg‘s “Dark Phoenix,” a film that was critically savaged and bomb at the box office. But Chastain seemed immediately cagey to speak in-depth about that film and revealed she had no idea about her character’s name until watching the final movie.
“Should we talk about this?… Oscar [Isaac] and I have definitely talked about this,” she said with a laugh, talking about trading notes on their ‘X-Men’ movie experiences. “I mean, the reality is our situations were very different. My situation… I think the studio was bought at a certain point; I didn’t even know what my character’s name was until I saw the film. What’s happening? [laughs]…But yes, it was an interesting thing. Simon Kinberg, who directed it, is an incredible human being, and I’ve worked with him again [on “The 355“]; I love him.”
Well played, pivot, and you can hear the deep hesitation in her voice. When pressed about fellow Julliard alumni Oscar Isaac playing Moon Knight and Anthony Mackie playing Falcon and then Captain America, Chastain was asked about her interest in playing a superhero in the future (she was famously offered Rebecca Hall‘s role in “Iron Man 3” and turned it down). But playing a comic book superhero doesn’t sound like something she’s terribly thrilled about anymore.
“Give me a supervillain; I don’t to be a superhero because if you’re a superhero, you’re doing ten films. I don’t want to sign a ten-year contract.”
That’s precisely the role she had in ‘Dark Phoenix,’ so maybe there’s a chance someone like Marvel or DC could get her for another one-and-done villain role. It’ll be interesting to see if Oscar Isaac does more Marvel Studios recruiting with longtime pal Chastain after convincing Ethan Hawke to participate in the “Moon Knight” series after a random chat in a coffee shop. Luckily for her, there are plenty of supervillains still up for grabs at Marvel.