Jessica Chastain is many things. Oscar-winning actress, mother, wife, SAG-AFTRA strike supporter, human rights activist, high school dropout, and, for a while, banana peel eater too!
Jessica Chastain Remembers Eating Orange & Banana Peels
Instagram | Jessica Chastain
Jessica Chastain wanted to stand out when she was in school, so she didn’t mind being labeled “weird.” In the “WTF with Matt Maron” Podcast, Chastain reveals her childhood quirks.
Since she described herself as “nerd” and “clueless” at the time, with a perm that made her look like Little Orphan Anne, Chastain decided she needed to do something to stand out. So one day, at the table at her school Chastain started eating only orange peels and bananas. He admits it sounds bad now but he really wanted attention at the time, and soon, he got attention that made him feel, “I’m something.”
Of course, today, Jessica Chastain does not need attention, or even an introduction, since she won the Academy Award for Best Actress, for the film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” in 2021, and was also nominated for “The Help” and ” Zero Dark Thirty.” He also won a Golden Globe Award for “Zero Dark Thirty” and has seven more nominations under his belt.
Then, when he went to primary school, he took theater as an elective and soon realized that this was something he was good at, slowly regaining his confidence, without having to eat banana peels!
Here’s Chastain, talking about the importance of the arts in school because theater saved her.
Have an Empty Refrigerator of Childhood
Instagram | Jessica Chastain
Chastain is usually private about her parents and refuses to discuss her family background, although it appears she was born to teenage parents. His mother raised him and his siblings, two sisters and a brother but tragically, his younger sister Juliet died by suicide. He was mostly raised by his mother, though credits his stepfather, firefighter Michael Hastey as the first person to make him feel safe.
That said, childhood is not easy. In the podcast, the actress told host Mike Maron that she didn’t realize how much her mother struggled to put food on the table. It was heartening when he learned about Sam Shepard’s play “Curse of the Starving Class.” He related to the character in the play, who often opens his refrigerator and looks inside, even though he knows there is no food there and it is empty. “That was the first time I realized, I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s us.’
Chastain remembers doing the same thing as a child, going to the refrigerator and opening it, and staring inside, even though there was no food inside.
In a previous interview as well, Chastain had admitted that there were times when they would go hungry, “We don’t have money. There were many nights when we had to go to bed without eating. It was a very difficult upbringing. Things were not easy for me growing up.”
Being a dreamer definitely pays off!
Jessica Chastain Asks Robin Williams to Thank Her for Her Degree
Instagram | Zak Williams
Chastain was a high school dropout but later earned an adult diploma before being awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City in the late 90s.
The grant was funded by Robin Williams and while Chastain thanked him by letter, she never got to meet him in person to do so. This was something he still regretted because he remembered that he once had a chance at a restaurant. He was sitting and eating when Williams sat down with some friends at the next table. He wanted to go and talk to her but she was eating, so she decided to wait so as not to look rude. Before she could do anything, Williams finished her food and left the table in a hurry, and Chastain felt that chasing her would be weird.
Unfortunately, she never got the chance and Williams died at the age of 63, in August 2014. She regrets missing the opportunity and says that now if someone comes to her, Chastain tells them, “Thank you for coming because this happened to me once, where I had a chance to meet someone I really wanted to talk to and I didn’t take it.”
You can listen to the podcast here:
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
