Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain is an award-winning actress who has gained widespread attention in 2011 for her work in ''The Help,' 'Tree of Life' and 'Zero Dark Thirty.'

Born on March 24, 1977, in Sacramento, California, Jessica Chastain attended Juilliard and then began landing roles on TV shows such as ER and Veronica Mars. Her acting career took off in 2011 when she appeared in the blockbuster The Help, earning a supporting actress Oscar nod for the role, and the lauded Tree of Life. She has since won a Golden Globe and earned another Academy Award nomination, specifically for lead actress in the Kathryn Bigelow film Zero Dark Thirty. Additional projects include Interstellar, A Most Violent Year and Crimson Peak. 

Early Years

Future actress Jessica Chastain was born Jessica Howard on March 24, 1977, in Sacramento, California, performing at an early age  in productions of Shakespeare's works like Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet around the San Francisco Bay area. At the urging of another actor in Romeo and Juliet, Chastain applied to the Juilliard School in New York City and was accepted, assisted by the help of a scholarship established by Juilliard alum Robin Williams. She eventually began to perform under her mother's maiden name, Chastain, in order to help avoid confusion with fellow redheaded actress Bryce Dallas Howard.

Starting in TV

During Chastain’s last year at Juilliard, John Wells—producer of The West Wing and ER, among many other TV shows—attended an acting showcase in which she was performing. He liked what he saw and signed her to a 12-month holding contract, in the hopes of finding a place for her in his upcoming shows. She ended up getting roles on Wells's ER and on Dark Shadows, Law & Order: Trial by Jury and a host of other programs. While she worked in TV, Chastain also was active on the stage, landing parts in The Cherry Orchard (with Michelle Williams), Wilde Salome (with Al Pacino) and Othello (with Philip Seymour Hoffman). Beginning in 2008, Chastain started to focus her efforts on big-screen roles.

Oscar Nod for 'The Help'

Roles in small films—such as Jolene (her first starring film role) and Stolen—were followed by a supporting role in The Debt (with Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson) in 2010. The year 2011 started well for the actress with the cult hit Take Shelter (for which she received a variety of accolades). While that film was quietly successful, Jessica Chastain didn’t stay under the radar for long, as 2011 turned out to be the year that she broke through into the mainstream.
After Chastain starred with Pacino in Wilde Salome, he recommended her to director Terrence Malick for a role in the upcoming Tree of Life. Chastain got the part, playing a grief-stricken wife opposite Brad Pitt, and that same year (2011) she appeared in the smash hit The Help, as well as in Coriolanus and Texas Killing Fields. As a testament to her success, the actress received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her work in The Help as the loving Southerner Celia Foote.

Serious, Acclaimed Dramas

Chastain followed up 2011 with several new films, including Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012) and Zero Dark Thirty (2012), a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. For her performance in Zero Dark Thirty as a real-life CIA operative, Chastain received the 2013 Golden Globe Award for best actress in a movie drama as well as an Academy Award nomination.
2014 saw Chastain starring in the relationship drama The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby with James McAvoy as well as having a major role as a scientist in the Christopher Nolan sci-fi epic Interstellar. Other film projects for the year included Miss Julie and A Most Violent Year, for which Chastain earned another Golden Globe nomination. Chastain was then seen in 2015 as an astronaut commander opposite Matt Damon in The Martian while also co-starring in the visually arresting horror flick Crimson Peak