Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and you're listening to a
Speaker 1: brand new season of Next Question. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. I'm starting this season, our fifth, if you
Speaker 1: can believe it, with a bang. Jessica Chastain is not
Speaker 1: only one of the most talented actors working in Hollywood today,
Speaker 1: she's also an outspoken advocate for gender equality who's making
Speaker 1: films and choosing roles that put women and equal pay
Speaker 1: front and center. She's also up for her second Oscar
Speaker 1: nomination for her truly transformative role as Tammy Faye Baker.
Speaker 1: Have you never done pictures without those eyelids? No, and
Speaker 1: I never will because that's my trademark. And you know
Speaker 1: if I take that away, then it's not me. We're
Speaker 1: going to get to all of that and more, but
Speaker 1: first we start with al Pacina. Don't worry, it makes sense.
Speaker 1: When I was interviewing al Pacino on Sixty Minutes, he
Speaker 1: took me through his production company, or we were walking
Speaker 1: through an edit room, and he showed me a video
Speaker 1: of you dancing in one of your earliest films, and
Speaker 1: you were dancing with your head back and spinning around,
Speaker 1: and you had this beautiful red hair, and he said,
Speaker 1: this girl is going to be a huge star. How
Speaker 1: funny is that? It's insane? I mean al Pacino was
Speaker 1: actually the one who really discovered me before I got
Speaker 1: cast a Salome. I mean, the industry had no idea
Speaker 1: what to do with me, and he was the one
Speaker 1: that really kind of was like, hey, you guys, look
Speaker 1: over here. And so it really started my career. Really,
Speaker 1: how did he how did he find you? I know
Speaker 1: you were you studied at Juilliard, but how did you
Speaker 1: cross paths with al Pacino of all people? Well? I was, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I went to Juilliard and I was doing a playoff Broadway.
Speaker 1: I did a playwrights Horizons, Richard Nelson play called Rodney's Wife,
Speaker 1: and I had done that not thought much about it.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like I made a ton of money doing
Speaker 1: it or anything like that. I was doing it just
Speaker 1: for like the love, you know, to get to do
Speaker 1: theater in New York. And then I went to visit
Speaker 1: a friend of mine um in Australia, and I got
Speaker 1: a call from my agent that said Alfacino wants you
Speaker 1: to come in an audition for Salom. I was like, what,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any sense. I don't know anyone connected
Speaker 1: to Alfacino, and I guess what had happened is Marta Keller,
Speaker 1: who um is a good friend of his. Uh an
Speaker 1: actress who um the what's it the Bobby Deerfield movie
Speaker 1: or or where he plays a race car driver. I
Speaker 1: forgot the name of that film they did together. But
Speaker 1: she saw Rodney's wife and um and then told him
Speaker 1: when he when he said he was going to do
Speaker 1: you know, the movie of Salome, she said, you should
Speaker 1: look at this actress. Wow. And that's really you think
Speaker 1: what started it all? Oh? Yeah, I mean I know,
Speaker 1: even like you know, I was having so many difficulties
Speaker 1: getting an audition for films. I was doing really good
Speaker 1: at pilot season, not really booking anything, but I was
Speaker 1: getting a ton of auditions during pilot season. And I
Speaker 1: remember recently reading um an article like Backstage where a
Speaker 1: casting director was talking about her experience. And in the
Speaker 1: article she said, I remember Jessica Chastain coming in and
Speaker 1: she had like four auditions that day, and she looked
Speaker 1: kind of messy and sweaty. I was like, oh God,
Speaker 1: that's probably why I didn't book anything. It was constantly
Speaker 1: like I was driving everywhere you know, I had like
Speaker 1: a whole like makeup station in the trunk of my
Speaker 1: car depending on what the character was. Um, but no luck.
Speaker 1: And then when i'm you know, if you're an unknown
Speaker 1: actor and you're playing salom A in the place salom
Speaker 1: A opposite Al Pacino in Los Angeles, everyone in the
Speaker 1: industry comes to see it. So it I could not
Speaker 1: have had a better showcase. That's such a great story.
Speaker 1: So what year was that, Jessica? Oh god? Uh so
Speaker 1: the Tree of Life came out in two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: I made Tree of Life in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: I don't know, two thousand and five or two thousand
Speaker 1: and six maybe is when we did the play because
Speaker 1: I'll also, when I was auditioning for the Tree of Life,
Speaker 1: wrote Terrence Malick a letter and that said like basically,
Speaker 1: you know, I know sometimes it's when you don't know
Speaker 1: who you're casting as a lead, it can be intimidating.
Speaker 1: But I've worked with her, and um, he kind of
Speaker 1: vouched for me. That was my reference letter. Alba, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. So I mean, do you still talk to
Speaker 1: al now that we're on a first basis? Yeah? Completely,
Speaker 1: you know, he's my acting godfather. Call him on his birthday, like,
Speaker 1: he's great. I love I love him. He will always
Speaker 1: be such a huge part of my I mean he's
Speaker 1: the reason why I have a career right now. So yes,
Speaker 1: he's I I love him and I am. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite movies is sent of a Woman I show
Speaker 1: you you don't know, and I'm such I I love
Speaker 1: al Pacino two. And it's nice to hear how generous
Speaker 1: he is and how supportive he's always been to you
Speaker 1: and protective. Yeah. Really yeah, like in an industry, you know,
Speaker 1: he knew he knew the ropes really well, and he
Speaker 1: was incredibly protective of me um coming into the industry,
Speaker 1: and like really made sure that I always even like
Speaker 1: in Salomon, you're playing a character that's so sexualized, even
Speaker 1: as it was starting out, it was never like, oh
Speaker 1: you have to do nudity. It was like whatever I
Speaker 1: was comfortable with. He had always been like That's why
Speaker 1: I call him my my acting godfather. He had always
Speaker 1: been so kind and protective and nurturing and so Yeah.
Speaker 1: In addition to being a brilliant actor, like one of
Speaker 1: our greatest screen actors, he's a he's a wonderful person.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to send him a copy of this
Speaker 1: podcast since we're seeing as phrases so much. When we
Speaker 1: come back, how Jessica Chastain took control of her career.
Speaker 1: You are kind of taking control of your own destiny
Speaker 1: because you started your own company in two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: Freckle Films, after making this incredibly impassioned speech Jessica at
Speaker 1: the two thousand and fifteen Critics Choice Awards. Today's Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Jr's birthday. So it got me thinking about
Speaker 1: our need to build the string of diversity in our
Speaker 1: industry and to stand together against homophobic, sexist, misogynistic, anti Semitic,
Speaker 1: and racist agendas. UM Martin Luther King Jr. Said, Our
Speaker 1: lives begin to end the day we become silent about
Speaker 1: things that matter. And I would like to encourage everyone
Speaker 1: in this room to please speak up. Thank you. How
Speaker 1: did that speech inspire you to branch out and to
Speaker 1: do this on your own and to really take control
Speaker 1: of your fate. Well, honestly, I wasn't really I didn't
Speaker 1: really know what to do. I had the Critics Choice
Speaker 1: I won this kind of It was the first ever prize.
Speaker 1: It was for Someone's body work that year, and I
Speaker 1: had so much come out. I didn't really know who
Speaker 1: to thank because I had multiple films that were being celebrated,
Speaker 1: and it was like the morning of UM. I Loved Selma,
Speaker 1: I Love Avia di Verne, and I felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I was sad that that film didn't get acknowledged in
Speaker 1: the way that it should have been. And so I
Speaker 1: just felt like, well, what if I can take this
Speaker 1: moment that I have the kind of inspires um us
Speaker 1: to like look inward um and and understand that if
Speaker 1: we're not actually making but if we're not actively trying
Speaker 1: to move the needle in terms of inclusivity, then in
Speaker 1: some sense we're part of the problem. So I just
Speaker 1: kind of took that moment to look, well, maybe I
Speaker 1: can take this platform and amplified that UM. And I
Speaker 1: was super happy because at the end of it, I
Speaker 1: someone showed me later it was like cut to Oprah
Speaker 1: and Eva, and I was really happy, like the fact
Speaker 1: that they I don't know, I just really I grew
Speaker 1: up watching Oprah AND's and I was just I loved
Speaker 1: that moment and I and I then went forward to
Speaker 1: go like, Okay, well, how can I now use whatever
Speaker 1: platform I have to help encourage our industry to move
Speaker 1: the needle in terms of um stories about women. And
Speaker 1: in fact, Freckle Films has produced three movies, including the
Speaker 1: Eyes of Tammy Faye UM and The three fifty five,
Speaker 1: which is an all female espionage thriller that came out
Speaker 1: this year. How does it feel different for you to
Speaker 1: be at the helm of these films versus other experiences
Speaker 1: when you weren't well. I guess the big difference is
Speaker 1: I get to participate in the storytelling aspect. So like
Speaker 1: with Tammy Faye, we had already had so much in
Speaker 1: her life like that was kind of tabloid e UM.
Speaker 1: And I remember my research reading about Jessica Hahn and
Speaker 1: her saying she just kind of wanted to not she
Speaker 1: wanted to be left alone and not connected to Jim
Speaker 1: Baker anymore into that part of her life. And when
Speaker 1: I read that, I thought, well, and we're making a
Speaker 1: story from Tammy face po V and Tammy and Jessica
Speaker 1: actually never met in real life. Why would we include
Speaker 1: the salacious details of Jessica Hant, especially when she doesn't
Speaker 1: really want to be included in And reminded I didn't
Speaker 1: want to profit off of another woman's trauma. So I
Speaker 1: guess in terms of storytelling, you can kind of shape
Speaker 1: a story and go, no, we're actually gonna the audience
Speaker 1: and everyone expects us to tell one story, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna fall into that. That's we've already been there,
Speaker 1: We've already um, you know, focused on the salacious, gossipy stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's what if we do something else that we don't expect?
Speaker 1: And so I guess producing you get to have that.
Speaker 1: Say you have been obsessed with Tammy Faye Baker for
Speaker 1: for quite a while, han't you? What is it about
Speaker 1: her and about her story that felt so compelling to you? Jessica, Well,
Speaker 1: you know I was on the press tour for zero
Speaker 1: Arc thirty and talking about that film a lot, and
Speaker 1: when when I saw the documentary again, you know, I
Speaker 1: was jet lighted somewhere, and I guess I focused so
Speaker 1: so much on playing a character who was very an
Speaker 1: eye for an eye, you know, so much was about
Speaker 1: revenge and you hurt me, I'm gonna hurt you, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hurt you worse. And you know, it felt
Speaker 1: like when I was watching the documentary was like this
Speaker 1: healing bomb. It was such a different thing that Tammy
Speaker 1: Face stood for. She was really into UH forgiveness and
Speaker 1: UM believing that everyone is deserving of love without judgment,
Speaker 1: which is like kind of like it's a beautiful, radical
Speaker 1: act of love if that's truly how you can live.
Speaker 1: And when I saw that, I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: just felt like something I wanted to tell just because
Speaker 1: of what I had already spent time focusing on UH.
Speaker 1: And then also I wanted to go back and celebrate
Speaker 1: her the incredible things she did. I mean the Steve
Speaker 1: Peters interview, her bringing him onto her show. He was
Speaker 1: an openly gay minister with AIDS and she it went
Speaker 1: it completely went against the all the conservative evangelicals at
Speaker 1: the time, I mean, politicians weren't even talking about the
Speaker 1: AIDS epidemic. And she brings Steve onto her show and
Speaker 1: she looks into the camera and she reminds Christians what
Speaker 1: it means to be Christian and you wrap your arms
Speaker 1: around people and you love through anything. And I just
Speaker 1: found that so moving, in such a radical act of love,
Speaker 1: and it was a political act in some sense, and
Speaker 1: she was never acknowledged for that. That was incredibly strong
Speaker 1: and brave and right of her to do that, and
Speaker 1: so I wanted to celebrate that act of courage. Tammy
Speaker 1: Faye was really caricatured in the media and and became
Speaker 1: almost cartoonish in her portrayal. I remember you no covering
Speaker 1: her in the nineties, Jessica and I had one of
Speaker 1: those shirts that said I ran into Tammy Faye Baker
Speaker 1: at the mall or Tammy Faye at the mall that
Speaker 1: had two big mascara stains on it, and um. She
Speaker 1: was really I think underestimated and mischaracterized because of the
Speaker 1: way she presented herself, wasn't she Absolutely? I mean that's
Speaker 1: something the media really does though, right, I mean that's
Speaker 1: something society does, and society women in the past have
Speaker 1: been taught to be as small as possible, to take
Speaker 1: up as little space as possible. Your voices have to
Speaker 1: be quiet, beefin, be demure, you know, be submissive, don't
Speaker 1: you know, don't talk to don't take up too much
Speaker 1: space talking. Let the men do things. You know. It's
Speaker 1: all about being as quiet and small as possible. And
Speaker 1: she was the opposite. She was like, you know, gonna
Speaker 1: sing as loud as she could. She was gonna laugh
Speaker 1: and cry and let her motions be everywhere, and we're
Speaker 1: the makeup. That was just what society could say was garish,
Speaker 1: but she because she was saying, this is my expression
Speaker 1: of how I feel. It was like this. It was
Speaker 1: like drag. You know. She was expressing how she felt
Speaker 1: on the inside on the outside, so much so that
Speaker 1: when people kept trying to change who she was, she
Speaker 1: tattooed her face so no one could really like, no
Speaker 1: one could wipe her makeup off, no one could change
Speaker 1: Tammy Faye. And um, I think she was mischaracterized because
Speaker 1: of that. I think it was because she refused to
Speaker 1: play the role of the quiet, submissive minister's wife. She
Speaker 1: was a minister in her own right. She went to
Speaker 1: school for it, she ministered, and she was her own person,
Speaker 1: separate from Jim Baker. Did you have assumptions about her
Speaker 1: that were that were shattered by the documentary because you
Speaker 1: probably consumed information about her and read about her and
Speaker 1: saw her in the way she was trade by the media.
Speaker 1: So what chattered those assumptions? Was it the documentary or
Speaker 1: was it doing research for this film? Tell me how
Speaker 1: your perception of Tammy Faye really shifted? I absolutely had
Speaker 1: assumptions about her. I mean, the church lady on SNL
Speaker 1: bringing Tammy Faye, like the Tammy Fay on Tammy we
Speaker 1: have a bit of goop on our face. Oh I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's mascara. Excuse me, I'm sorry, or Tammy Faye on
Speaker 1: the Drew Carey Show. It was like playing up the joke,
Speaker 1: like what you say that T shirt? I mean she
Speaker 1: would hold the T shirt and laugh. She loved camp,
Speaker 1: she loved um making people smile and laugh, so she
Speaker 1: in some sense was like okay to be in on
Speaker 1: the joke, to be like the butt of the joke.
Speaker 1: I still think it hurt her probably. Um My assumptions
Speaker 1: were what I read on the tabloids. You know, she was,
Speaker 1: for me as a child, an example of what I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be. Um. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: someone who society deemed was unattractive, you know, because of
Speaker 1: like how they you know, or a thief, like all
Speaker 1: of these things that the media had put on her.
Speaker 1: That's what I assumed. And then definitely even like the
Speaker 1: mess this is crazy, the mascara running down her face.
Speaker 1: There's so many people that I've talked to about this film.
Speaker 1: And they go, oh, I remember sitting in my room
Speaker 1: and watching an interview with She's crying and there's mascara
Speaker 1: running down her face. And I always go like, are
Speaker 1: you sure that happened? Because the or or are you
Speaker 1: remembering a comedy sketch where mascara is running down the face,
Speaker 1: Because the reality is I watched everything I could get
Speaker 1: my hands on. There's not one photograph or one video
Speaker 1: of Tammy Faye with mascara running down her face. But
Speaker 1: we all have this collective memory of who she was
Speaker 1: bay on satire and tabloids, and we see that as
Speaker 1: we saw that as truth. And so I guess that's it.
Speaker 1: Reading all of her books, watching you know, seven years
Speaker 1: to research her and and prepare for the character. So
Speaker 1: it really very quickly got rid of any misconceptions that
Speaker 1: I in misinterpretations that I had. Do you admire her
Speaker 1: when all is said and done, or do you see
Speaker 1: her as a flawed person? I mean, after all, they did, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, live high on the hog, as they would say,
Speaker 1: with contributions to the church, and you know, did a
Speaker 1: lot of things that aren't particularly admirable. I'm just curious
Speaker 1: how you feel about her now. That you know her intimately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I love her now. I mean I've never met her.
Speaker 1: I love her, and I can tell you for me personally,
Speaker 1: I don't believe the prosperity doctrine. I don't believe. I
Speaker 1: think money always corrupts. I think this idea, but it's
Speaker 1: in every religion. I mean, look at the Vatican. Money
Speaker 1: is so closely tied to faith, and I think that's
Speaker 1: absolutely an issue. Every Sunday we passed the played around
Speaker 1: um to donate. I think with tele evangelism, it's your
Speaker 1: congregation is now like so many people, the money just
Speaker 1: becomes more it's it's more intense, but it's it's still
Speaker 1: this every it's still the root of money corrupts. And
Speaker 1: so when money is closely tied with faith, is that
Speaker 1: a pure thing? I like, look back at everything that happened.
Speaker 1: I don't think she ever lied to the public. I
Speaker 1: think she was not very intelligent when it came to money.
Speaker 1: Because she wrote four books and she recorded over twenty albums.
Speaker 1: All of her royalties went straight to the church, and
Speaker 1: then she took her salary from the church and in
Speaker 1: the reality, what she should done. It's kept all of
Speaker 1: her royalties and then take nothing from the church, and
Speaker 1: I think that would have given her a better perception
Speaker 1: from the public. It's heartbreaking at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: film Jessica to see how she was other rise from
Speaker 1: the very beginning, having been born to a mom before
Speaker 1: she was married, and made to feel different than her siblings.
Speaker 1: It was heartbreaking, and yet she was able to overcome
Speaker 1: that with this incredible inner strength. And maybe because of
Speaker 1: that she developed this incredible inner strength. But where do
Speaker 1: you think that came from. I don't think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I don't think she was confident. I think
Speaker 1: she played that she was confident. I think you know,
Speaker 1: she was an EmPATH, and she had a very like
Speaker 1: unstable childhood, you know, the father left, and then she
Speaker 1: became the embodiment of the shame of the first marriage
Speaker 1: in this Pentecostal community. And I think you know, with
Speaker 1: an EmPATH, what they do is they walk into a
Speaker 1: room and they find the dark energy because they try
Speaker 1: to fix it. They try to like, if someone is suffering,
Speaker 1: they want to fix them, they want to make them
Speaker 1: feel better. And so I think her confidence comes or
Speaker 1: what looks like confidence, is more of her trying to
Speaker 1: heal because she felt that by healing someone who felt unloved,
Speaker 1: she could heal herself. After the break, Jessica does her
Speaker 1: best Ammy Faye, and we talk about what progress women
Speaker 1: have made in some areas is quickly unraveling in others.
Speaker 1: You spent hours upon hours in makeup chair, didn't you,
Speaker 1: And it took a pretty serious toll on you. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about that? Yeah? So the first I mean
Speaker 1: the longest it was was seven and a half hours,
Speaker 1: and the shortest might have been three and a half
Speaker 1: four So every day it was quite a journey. I
Speaker 1: mean I would wear compression stockings because after a few
Speaker 1: days I started to get nervous. You know, when you
Speaker 1: sit still. I don't know how people say they can
Speaker 1: sleep in the makeup trailer. I cannot. You know, when
Speaker 1: someone's touching my face, I'm like, okay, look this way,
Speaker 1: look that way. I look up down. I had earbuds
Speaker 1: in and I would watch um the hundred. I had
Speaker 1: hundreds of hours of unused footage that the documentary filmmakers
Speaker 1: gave me for research. I was constantly every morning in
Speaker 1: the makeup trailer, studying her, sending her voice, watching her interviews.
Speaker 1: So by the time I got to set, I felt
Speaker 1: like ready and like, really, Keyton, did you watch her
Speaker 1: final interview I think with Larry King when she was
Speaker 1: she was I think dying of colling cancer at the time.
Speaker 1: She died a few days after that interview. Did you
Speaker 1: watch that? Because obviously the film doesn't cover that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we thought, like, are we going to cover
Speaker 1: that part of her life? Um? And ultimately, like there
Speaker 1: was a scene in the documentary that I found so
Speaker 1: incredibly moving, um where she goes back to do a
Speaker 1: concert and she's really scared and it's the religious community,
Speaker 1: and you know, there was a woman who was kind
Speaker 1: of mean to her and then or like saying mean
Speaker 1: things about her, and and then she walked up to
Speaker 1: this woman, not even knowing that that there was this
Speaker 1: behind her back happening. She's like, hi, honey, how you
Speaker 1: doing today, and like reached out to her, and then
Speaker 1: this one was like in the front row, like clapping
Speaker 1: for the concert. I just thought it was so beautiful,
Speaker 1: like switching the energy around, like you can be getting
Speaker 1: something negative and just like that usually means that someone
Speaker 1: needs some love. So if you return that with love,
Speaker 1: it completely changes their demeanor and I liked that ending
Speaker 1: for her. I didn't UM. I didn't want to really
Speaker 1: go into the cancer and her you know, physical ailments
Speaker 1: that came after. I really, to me, wanted to connect
Speaker 1: to her faith and her relationship with love UM because
Speaker 1: I thought that that would be the most healing, and
Speaker 1: especially you know, at the end the whole speech of
Speaker 1: like God looked at me and said, Tammy, Phil I
Speaker 1: love you, and I love you just the way you are,
Speaker 1: and God loves you just the way you are. That's
Speaker 1: actually something she said in one of her performances. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to end with that. I wanted the audience
Speaker 1: to feel connected to humanity in a different way. And
Speaker 1: I felt like if we had gone, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the route of her physical ailments, it would have taken
Speaker 1: away from that. You know. The role makeup played in
Speaker 1: her life obviously looms large in this film as well,
Speaker 1: and there's a very touching moment after she almost accidentally
Speaker 1: overdoes on some prescription meds. She catches herself in the
Speaker 1: mirror and she sits down and she puts on lipstick.
Speaker 1: She's interrupted by Jim and she says, Jim, can we
Speaker 1: talk about Satan later? I'm just starting to feel like myself. UM.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that moment. It it kind of illustrates
Speaker 1: Tammy phase I don't know, happy place or comfort zone, um,
Speaker 1: and the role that that this played in her whole being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know. We started that scene, we had
Speaker 1: to cut it out. It was too expensive. But her
Speaker 1: favorite song was Kasassa, so I was like humming it
Speaker 1: getting my diet coke. It was like she loved her
Speaker 1: die coke Kaserasra. But then there is the moment she
Speaker 1: looks in the mirror and still is like after like
Speaker 1: even a full face of makeup, she feels like, I'm
Speaker 1: not there yet. I'm not I'm not feeling like at
Speaker 1: my utmost so she sits down to put more on uh,
Speaker 1: and then Jim coming in with his energy. I think
Speaker 1: it's the first time we see Tammy have a boundary.
Speaker 1: You know. So much of the film is this codependence
Speaker 1: where she's taking care of Jim. She's trying to lift
Speaker 1: him up and like and make him feel like more
Speaker 1: of a man and and all of these things that
Speaker 1: he needs to be. And the beginning of that scene,
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm hanging on by a thread here. Let's
Speaker 1: can we talk about Satan and what you're going through
Speaker 1: later and just like give me this moment. I And
Speaker 1: I like that because I think also we as women
Speaker 1: need to do that more, just say whenever, like we
Speaker 1: need our moment to say, let's talk about Satan later.
Speaker 1: There's also a great scene where she plops herself down
Speaker 1: at the men's table with a baby on her hip,
Speaker 1: and you know that was kind of a radical act
Speaker 1: back then, where she didn't go to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: female things with all the women and and a lot
Speaker 1: of this is about the patriarchy of the evangelical movement,
Speaker 1: to which wasn't obviously limited to the evangelical movement at
Speaker 1: the time. But she just wanted to kind of crash
Speaker 1: through those doors, didn't she. Yeah, And I think for
Speaker 1: her she never even saw it as a door. I
Speaker 1: think you know, she went to college and she was
Speaker 1: a minister, and when you know, right when her and
Speaker 1: Jim got married, Jim would actually stopped showing up to study,
Speaker 1: and their teachers showed up and said, listen, dude, your
Speaker 1: wife is going to be like she's gonna be the
Speaker 1: star of the family. Like you gotta like show up
Speaker 1: and apply yourself. Because I think she always had that drive.
Speaker 1: She always wanted to connect to people through faith. And
Speaker 1: when she you know, sees all like the Fallwell and
Speaker 1: Pat Robertson and all of them at the table talking
Speaker 1: about the state of faith in the United States, I
Speaker 1: think that's far more interesting to her at that time
Speaker 1: than like, I don't know, like what the kids are
Speaker 1: eating or what you know, like what's happening. She wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about work and you know, and God, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to debate to Jerry. I love you,
Speaker 1: I love all of you guys. Reverend follow Yeah, we
Speaker 1: love you too, Jammy Faye. God is my witness. I
Speaker 1: made a pledge to continue to expose the sins in
Speaker 1: this country. The Bible explicitly forbids homosexuality. There's no gray area.
Speaker 1: Um well, you know, I I don't think of them
Speaker 1: as home sexual as. I just think of them as
Speaker 1: other human beings that I love. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: just people made out of the same old dirt and
Speaker 1: God didn't make any junk. I love that moment too,
Speaker 1: because you really see the different forks of the road
Speaker 1: that faith can take. And you know, there's like the
Speaker 1: Tammy phase way of you know, everyone is deserving of
Speaker 1: God's love without judgment. And then there's the Jerry Folwell way.
Speaker 1: And sadly, when I look at this country, I kind
Speaker 1: of see I wonder what would have happened if Tammy
Speaker 1: Faye hadn't been um taken down from the scandals of
Speaker 1: her husband, and if we had we had known that
Speaker 1: faith can be all encompassing and include everyone, and to
Speaker 1: have a more soft approach to that than this like
Speaker 1: hard line of um, if you don't agree with me,
Speaker 1: then you're wrong, or God is on my side. God
Speaker 1: this God believes that you're wrong. I'm right. I feel
Speaker 1: like we're kind of in that phase right now, which
Speaker 1: is the Jerry Folwell um way. It also made me
Speaker 1: wonder what if Tammy Faye had emerged as a national
Speaker 1: figure now versus when she did, and have things evolved
Speaker 1: enough that she could have been as prominent as her
Speaker 1: husband been, uh publicly right, if she wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: to retreat so much behind him. Absolutely, I mean, even
Speaker 1: if you look at her life right after she left
Speaker 1: uh Jim, I mean she hosted a show with Jim J. Bullock,
Speaker 1: who was like an openly gay comedian. Um, she was
Speaker 1: on the surreal life like she she did a lot
Speaker 1: of things. She was absolutely a celebrity in the public eye,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't hiding or or she wasn't in the
Speaker 1: shadow of any man. I think had she emerged now, Um,
Speaker 1: what would have been so beautiful about her is she
Speaker 1: was someone because she knew what it was like to
Speaker 1: feel unloved or unacknowledged or cast aside and cast out.
Speaker 1: She would have looked at any group in society that
Speaker 1: felt that and she would have connected with them and
Speaker 1: been like um, the healing bomb that they needed to
Speaker 1: feel part of something bigger than who they are. So
Speaker 1: I you know, in any time, it's wonderful to have
Speaker 1: someone who represents that. You know, so much of her
Speaker 1: life she was mocked and and ridiculed and shamed, and
Speaker 1: I think in retrospect it says much more about society
Speaker 1: than it does about Tammy Faye and how we treat
Speaker 1: certain women who become a caricature of of themselves. And
Speaker 1: I imagine that's something you wanted to address in this
Speaker 1: re examination of Tammy Faye. I'm very interested in how
Speaker 1: the media perceives women, whether it be like UH political candidates,
Speaker 1: like what do they say, regarding female politicians versus male politicians. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, people working in the media, news anchors, you know,
Speaker 1: what are the standards for each person and in terms
Speaker 1: of like the voices, the clothing, um, you know, even
Speaker 1: like recently who was like Taylor Swift came out and
Speaker 1: starts talking about the difference between you know, she's her
Speaker 1: being a female songwriter and male songwriters. And there's this
Speaker 1: the sense in the media that if you're as confident
Speaker 1: and you acknowledge your talent, in some sense, you are
Speaker 1: um beyond your station as a woman, Like it's like
Speaker 1: know your place, Like you're lucky to get to do this,
Speaker 1: and so thank the people around you who gave you
Speaker 1: the chance instead of saying actually, no, like you're welcome.
Speaker 1: You know, like you think me, you think me. Like
Speaker 1: Sean de Rimes has a great quote when she said,
Speaker 1: you know, all the the articles came out about like
Speaker 1: Netflix and her deal, and it was almost like they
Speaker 1: lured her to Netflix with all this money, and she goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I am the candy. I'm not being lured by candy
Speaker 1: by someone else. I'm the andy that you guys want.
Speaker 1: And it's that idea that we need to understand, and
Speaker 1: society also needs to look at like women don't need
Speaker 1: to be um giving thanks for everything they get the
Speaker 1: reality of society needs to start thinking women for everything
Speaker 1: they give. I love that. I'm gonna I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: a pillow with that. Good. Um. I have to ask
Speaker 1: you about the voice because it was uncanny, and I
Speaker 1: want you to do Tammy Face voice for me a
Speaker 1: little bit. I mean, and how you kind of used
Speaker 1: your throat and your nasally and how did you do that?
Speaker 1: Because it was spot on? Oh thanks, oh god, it was.
Speaker 1: It's not it was not an accent that came easy
Speaker 1: to me. I worked with Liz Hamilstein, who's an amazing
Speaker 1: dialect coach, and Um, first we started just you know,
Speaker 1: with the drills for the Minnesota accent. Everyone thinks Tammy
Speaker 1: was from the South. She wasn't. She was from International Falls, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: which you know, gave her a very folksy way of talking.
Speaker 1: And also I realized by watching so many interviews the
Speaker 1: way she said Jim, that was my way in all
Speaker 1: the time. Jim, am you know, it was so cute. Jim,
Speaker 1: Oh come on, you know, And as she talked to
Speaker 1: my voice, my voice is much lower. Liz would always
Speaker 1: try to get it up. So I do these drills.
Speaker 1: I did the Steve Peter's interview every morning. Um. I
Speaker 1: did it kind of as a monologue to get me
Speaker 1: into character. You know, we're life from l a. Like
Speaker 1: the way she talked. I just loved her voice. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you when when it finished. It took me
Speaker 1: a long time to stop speaking like her because I
Speaker 1: just wanted to. I just wanted to talk. It's just
Speaker 1: the cutest way of talking. And and also the like
Speaker 1: the how she would do like her shoulders, and what
Speaker 1: about her laugh? What about her laugh, Jessica, you two
Speaker 1: are here to learn the way, Oh my god, her
Speaker 1: laugh and her smile, there was so much that I
Speaker 1: just studied, study studied. Like when she smiles, I smile
Speaker 1: like with both my teeth, like I have a big smile.
Speaker 1: She smiled, she only lifted her top lips, so it
Speaker 1: was like like like you only saw these teeth here.
Speaker 1: It took forever, like listening to her laugh and listening
Speaker 1: to her voice and looking at myself in the mirror
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out how to smile like her.
Speaker 1: But I loved it. I mean listen. If I'm going
Speaker 1: to spend seven years studying someone, I want them to
Speaker 1: be like Tammy Faye, someone who makes me feel good
Speaker 1: about like loving others and also makes me laugh. She
Speaker 1: loved camp, so she loved to laugh, and so she
Speaker 1: was ridiculous and and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Before we go,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about You have been such
Speaker 1: a champion for gender equality, and I wondered if you
Speaker 1: think things have changed, because I know you are walking
Speaker 1: the walk. You negotiated equal salaries for for fellow actors
Speaker 1: like Octavia Spencer. Do you think things are changing in Hollywood? Jessica,
Speaker 1: I definitely think things are changing, which is great. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're like fixed, right change. Everything should
Speaker 1: always be changing. Everything should always be in motion and
Speaker 1: fluid and evolving and growing. And but I look at
Speaker 1: the industry. This is what it's shocking to understand. I've
Speaker 1: only been in the industry ten years, and the change
Speaker 1: from when I started to what I see now is monumental.
Speaker 1: I mean, many years ago, I said, Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start working with a female filmmaker. Every year. It was
Speaker 1: hard to find female filmmakers because women started in the industry,
Speaker 1: but they were being like excluded and then they had
Speaker 1: to go find other jobs to support themselves and support
Speaker 1: their families. Now we like we are encouraging female filmmakers
Speaker 1: and they're being given an opportunity. So that's a big change.
Speaker 1: I can look at sun Dancing, Oscars, and can in
Speaker 1: Venice San Sebastian. You look at all these these places.
Speaker 1: Last year a female filmmaker won the Top Film Prize,
Speaker 1: which I don't know ten years ago, a woman women
Speaker 1: winning the Top Film Prize would have been a huge story.
Speaker 1: The fact that all of like the major like festivals
Speaker 1: and awards shows, a female filmmaker won the top prize
Speaker 1: for her film is amazing and um, it's exciting to me.
Speaker 1: So yes, things are changing. Also, uh, being on a
Speaker 1: set and seeing more women in leadership positions in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, as screenwriters, as producers, as directors, it
Speaker 1: changes everything. It changes the idea of what a female
Speaker 1: character is. It changes even love scenes like something you
Speaker 1: don't even think about so much. But I was doing
Speaker 1: something the other day and our female producer said, well,
Speaker 1: wouldn't like in this scene like for a woman and
Speaker 1: it would be like this and like talking it through
Speaker 1: and you just think, Wow. In the past, that was
Speaker 1: never even a part of the conversation. It was like
Speaker 1: a bunch of men would be in a room and
Speaker 1: dictate what the love seeing between the man and woman
Speaker 1: should be, and no one would really even give a
Speaker 1: thought to that. A woman also has her own sexual
Speaker 1: pleasure and desire, and um, what does that mean in
Speaker 1: the scene. Um, so a lot has changed and that
Speaker 1: makes me very happy. You know, as we see progress
Speaker 1: being made in certain areas, we see things being unraveled
Speaker 1: in others. And I know you've been a vocal supporter
Speaker 1: of planned parenthood, and yet now we're in a situation
Speaker 1: where Roe v. Wade may very well be overturned by
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And I'm curious if you are going
Speaker 1: to get involved in that in speaking out, because I
Speaker 1: know you've been such a fierce advocate for women. By
Speaker 1: the way, if you don't want to address this, we
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm happy to talk about this. No, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to talk about this. I support Planned Parenthood.
Speaker 1: I pay them, I give them a donation every month.
Speaker 1: I you know, they provided me with birth control pills
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, and anyone who are argument
Speaker 1: is oh, you should just not have sex is living
Speaker 1: like in the dark ages, because guess what women like sex?
Speaker 1: Sorry to tell you women like sex. This is what
Speaker 1: does men do. And women also would like to go
Speaker 1: to college and have a life in a career and
Speaker 1: plan their families. Um. So planned parenthood absolutely gave me
Speaker 1: the tools to do that, um, you know, being able
Speaker 1: to have birth control pills. So I'm an active supporter
Speaker 1: of that. I also believe that the morning after pill
Speaker 1: should be an easy thing for women around the United
Speaker 1: States to get. And I look at history and usually
Speaker 1: in cycles, usually when something negative happens, we can live
Speaker 1: in that energy, in that vacuum. You know, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of women who were really disturbed when Donald
Speaker 1: Trump became president. That also was the year we had
Speaker 1: the Women's March. Then we had me too, Then we
Speaker 1: had all of these incredible things happened for women. So sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, a negative thing does not happen in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: It creates a reaction. And what I believe a reaction
Speaker 1: should be is that there should be over the counter,
Speaker 1: um morning after pills for women to get anywhere. There
Speaker 1: should also be over the counter medicine for women with
Speaker 1: U T I s. There's women's health should needs to
Speaker 1: be more readily accessible all over the place in this country,
Speaker 1: and so I think that's something that needs a mass overhaul.
Speaker 1: But what about the right to an abortion, if in
Speaker 1: fact that is necessary to terminate a pregnancy. I believe
Speaker 1: every woman has a right to her body, has a
Speaker 1: right to have an abortion, and I will absolutely continue
Speaker 1: UM funding and and donating into plant parenthood. Well, I
Speaker 1: love talking to you, I love seeing you in so
Speaker 1: many different roles and in so many different movies and
Speaker 1: and streaming series and scenes from a marriage and everything
Speaker 1: that you're doing. Um, So I'm just so happy for you.
Speaker 1: And is there something that we can look forward to
Speaker 1: featuring Jessica chas Sdain in the future. Well, I'm currently
Speaker 1: doing UM George Jones Tammy went at mini series right
Speaker 1: now UM with Michael Shannon, of which I'm very happy about.
Speaker 1: And then UM, I have a film I did with
Speaker 1: Eddie Redmain called The Good Nurse, directed by Tobias lind Home,
Speaker 1: which I'm very also very very excited about and that
Speaker 1: I think they're locking picture on. So that'll be coming
Speaker 1: out hopefully this year. Well, you're a busy woman in
Speaker 1: and we're better off because of it. Thanks Jessica. Great
Speaker 1: to see you again and and we love you. Thank you. Katie.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy too. I love you. I'm so happy
Speaker 1: to talk to you. You can stream The Eyes of
Speaker 1: Tammy Faye right now on HBO Max. Thank you all
Speaker 1: so much for listening to our season debut. We've got
Speaker 1: some really exciting episodes ahead. Big names, big ideas, big conversations,
Speaker 1: So make sure you subscribe if you haven't already, and
Speaker 1: if you haven't had enough of me in your ears,
Speaker 1: you can get more of me in your inbox every
Speaker 1: morning does not sound exciting With my newsletter Wake Up Call,
Speaker 1: go to Katie currek dot com to sign up. Next
Speaker 1: Question with Katie Kurik is a production of My Heart
Speaker 1: Media and Katie currk Media. The executive producers are Me,
Speaker 1: Katie Curic, and Courtney Litt. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen.
Speaker 1: Associate producers Derek Clements and Adriana Fasio. The show is
Speaker 1: edited and mixed by Derrek Clements. For more information about
Speaker 1: today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter
Speaker 1: Wake Up Call, go to katie currect dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find me at Katie curric on Instagram and
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.