Not that she has been particularly quiet over the last half-decade, starring in films like Molly's Game and It: Chapter Two, but Jessica Chastain has had something of a banner year. She's hotly tipped to be in awards contention for her starring, make-up heavy role in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, playing the eponymous real-life televangelist; back in September, she and Oscar Isaac were the talk of Venice town for their steamy rendezvous on the Scenes of a Marriage red carpet, in which the pair co-starred. Now, ahead of its release next year, she's been talking to Empire magazine about her upcoming film The 355, a women-led spy action flick with a feminist punch.
The film offered an opportunity for the Hollywood heavyweight to tilt the balance when it comes to the depiction of women in spy flicks, not least the double-0s. In her words:
"I feel like the film industry has really got female spies wrong. [...] They've portrayed them as honeypots, and that's not the reality of the situation. Women weren't being used for their bodies, they were being used for their minds, which is a more interesting concept."
Chastain's comments come a couple of months after the release of the latest Bond title, No Time to Die, which features Lashana Lynch as one of the series' first women agents. She steps in as the spiritual—and nominal—successor to Bond, taking his 007 moniker after the iconic super spy, played in the film by Daniel Craig, retires to Jamaica. In an interview with Harper's Bazaar, Lynch described her casting as a step in the right direction, saying "I feel very grateful that I get to challenge those narratives [...] We're moving away from toxic masculinity, and that's happening because women are being open, demanding and vocal, and calling out misbehavior as soon as we see it."
The 355 centers on a global coalition of covert agents—American Mason "Mace" Brown, German Marie (Diane Kruger), badass Brit Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o), and Colombian Graciela (Penélope Cruz)—who embark on a lethal, breakneck mission to recover a top-secret weapon from the hands of a rogue mercenary group. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the opulent auction houses of Shanghai, the quartet of women must forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world... or get them killed. The title of the film is derived from Agent 355, a female spy for the Patriots during the American Revolution.
The film is set to explode into theatres on January 7th next year. Empire also released an exclusive new image from The 355, which you can check out below:
