Name of actor: Jessica Chastain
Name of film: The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Director: American comedian Michael Showalter
Year: 2021
Poster
Her Oscar win
Why this actor:
Jessica Chastain won the 2022 best actress Oscar for this outrageous, unstable, almost loveable and simultaneously detestable portrait of Tammy Faye – wife of disgraced superstar tv evangelist Jim Bakker. Who would have thought after her moody obsessive turn in Zero Dark Thirty, that she was capable of this thoroughly entertaining transformation – it is Chastain's performance that keeps this film on track – the viewer cannot wait to see what she will do next. The film centres around the couple - their rise and fall - but for this viewer it is a portrait of a woman at odds with herself, trying and failing to maintain a sense of style, as her, and her husband's star begin to fade. From the beginning, the viewer knows Faye is a devoutly Christian young woman. She falls in love at bible college with the charming but untrustworthy Bakker, played with exuberance by Andrew Garfield. Over the years, Tammy realises her husband is not the man she once thought - but she is also loyal childish, vain and scared and stays with him – It is to her credit that you never really know, to what degree, if at all, she was complicit in her husband's shenanigans - Chastain just hints at it, or is she truly naive? Her performance, full of nervous laughter and nervous energy, suggests a kind of martyrdom as she is drawn into her husband’s mess. The title of this film is about Faye's permanent eye, lip liner and liquid mascara she bizarrely had stuck on her face in the second part of her life, In her later years, Faye achieved a kind of redemption as a Christian broadcaster and singing recording star. She was praised for her courage in supporting the LGBT community and people with Aids in the 80s, defying the homophobia of the Christian right in Ronald Reagan’s America. Chastain who also produced the movie, beat Kristen Stewart, Olivia Coleman, Penelope Cruz and Nicole Kidman at the Oscars and she said that her win was “very meaningful” as she has wanted to tell the story of the superstar televangelist for years. Speaking to reporters after her win, the 45-year-old actress said: "I still can't understand that I'm holding an Oscar. This is the first time I've held one. I'm friends with Eddie Redmayne, and I've been to his house in London. Everyone was like, 'Oh, look. His Oscar,' and they all picked it up. I was like, 'I can't pick it up!' I felt superstitious.So this is the very first time I've even held one." Jessica added: "It was 10 years ago that I got the rights to tell this story. And to be here 10 years later with a film I bought the rights to, that I kind of willed into existence, is incredibly meaningful." Chastain wanted to reclaim Tammy Faye’s narrative. Faye herself died in 2007 but Chastain was in contact with her children, Tammy Sue, 65, and Jay Bakker, 46 as she studied for her winning role. She says: "Also it's very special to be part of a film that means something to me, in that it rights an injustice and re-examines a life. It is so important to give each other our flowers when we're alive. I feel like we missed that opportunity with Tammy Faye. So it is very special to me. I was texting with her children during the ceremony. I kept texting them. It's a beautiful, beautiful moment, and it means so much to me in terms of my profession, but also in terms of my life." A worthy award winner and a complex, committed, funny/sad performance that will make the viewer feel a range of differing emotions for Tammy Faye.
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