Oscar favorite, Sacramento-raised Jessica Chastain walks red carpet amid broadcast dispute
.JPG "Jessica Chastain arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.")
Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain made her date with the red carpet after all.
Before taking home the Academy Award for best actress, the Sacramento-raised star and Oscar favorite for her role as televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” warned she was ready to forgo the flashbulbs ahead of Sunday night’s 94th Academy Awards broadcast in order to sit with her Oscar-nominated makeup and hairstyling team, Town&Country magazine reported on its website.
“I will absolutely be present when the Makeup and Hairstyle category is being called,” Chastain told The Next Best Picture podcast, as first reported by Town & Country. “If that means I’m not doing press on the red carpet or ABC, or whatever it is, then so be it. The most important thing to me is to honor the incredible artisans who work in our industry.”
The problem: Presentations for eight awards, including the statuette for Makeup and Hairstyling, won’t be shown live, a list that also features Documentary Short, Film Editing, Original Score, Production Design, Animated Short, Live-Action Short, and Sound.
The statuettes instead will be awarded an hour before the live broadcast (ABC10, 5 p.m.).
But Chastain sparkled in a custom-designed, sequined Gucci gown with a frothy lilac ruffle as she made her way up the red carpet
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Honoring their work
The changes to the broadcast, and the addition of presenters including DJ Khaled, skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk and Olympic snowboarder Shaun White, had courted controversy and angered Oscar-watchers and actors including Chastain, whose stylists painstakingly recreated Faye’s extravagant persona for the big screen.
“... People don’t understand how beyond an actor the performance is. You look at this incredible makeup team — Tammy Faye goes through three decades. Without the expertise of what they did, it just would not have been possible to do that on film,” Chastain said on the March 14 podcast. “I will be 100% present. To me, it’s an opportunity to really honor their work.”
Chastain, who attended Sacramento City College and made her professional stage debut in the Bay Area before heading to Julliard on a scholarship funded by Robin Williams, exploded on the scene in 2011 with her Best Supporting Actress-nominated turn in “The Help.”
Two years later, in 2013, Chastain received her second Oscars nod, this time for Best Actress for “Zero Dark Thirty.”
Now, Chastain returns to the Oscars as the favorite for her first Academy Award for her transformational role as Bakker.
Chastain already has collected Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice awards for best actress for her portrayal, placing her in the pole position for her first golden statue 10 years after first picking up the project.
“I’ve been working on this for a decade,” Chastain told “The Next Best Picture,” calling her role and the picture a career peak.
“I define the peak as when the career connected with something personal,” Chastain said on the podcast. “There’s something about playing Tammy that has taught me so much about myself .... It’s so much more bold to just be an open, sensitive human being.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2022 at 2:32 PM.
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