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For a decade, Jessica Chastain (Sacramento, 44) has carried the character of Tammy Faye Bakker in her guts. “It’s funny, because, as far as I can remember, I’ve never been on a long-term project that I got off of,” recalls Chastain. “When I’m serious, I’m very loyal,” he concedes. In 2012 he saw the documentary Tammy Faye’s eyes and he knew instantly that there was a vein there. Outside the United States, almost no one knows Tammy Faye Bakker, but in her country her figure has been both idolized and dragged through the mud. She reigned with her husband, Jim Bakker, in the world of telepreachers during the seventies and eighties, together they built the largest amusement park in their country – obviously destined for their followers, Christian evangelists – they built an empire whose foundations were pure mud. When Jim Bakker’s accounting engineering and his infidelities came to light, that world fell apart. Around them jumped like vultures the other televangelists, who had never finished accepting the couple, whose messages were wrapped in music and laughter, in pop colors opposed to the gray of the other shepherds. In addition, Tammy Faye delivered love sermons to homosexuals in the midst of the AIDS pandemic, sang instead of proclaiming, and was obsessed with her physique.
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Chastain has now reached the end of his path. Tammy Faye’s eyes (they have repeated the title of the documentary for fiction) is presented in the San Sebastián festival competition before its commercial premiere, which in Spain is scheduled for February. In the film, the script goes one step further and enters a deep debate: the difference between spirituality and religion. “I see Tammy as a very spiritual woman, who clashes with the great preachers of the seventies, leaders with a clear vision of religion as an institution. On the other hand, she stuck to love ”. The actress experiences a kind of Stockholm syndrome with the character, after seven years studying her voice (close to that of Betty Bop), her gestures and her behavior. “I have analyzed her from all possible points of view, with my usual radar for characters full of chiaroscuro and cracks, and, truly, she was like a child, brimming with innocence. In his purity, he believed that everything was possible ”.
So was she ahead of her time? “In reality, women who have fought for gender equality have always seemed ahead of their time,” she clarifies. “It is true that we live in a society that judges by appearance, and that Tammy was very meticulous and exaggerated in that regard. In return, he never followed the rules. And of course, he created a huge controversy around him, especially because of his affection for the LGTBI community. In 1994 it sounded radical, today the rights of minorities have already been accepted in my country, so that future would have been easier for him ”. Being such a controversial character, aren’t you worried that some of the American public will oppose the film even without seeing it? “Well, that has happened to me so many times in my career [carcajada]. The premieres of several of my films were not well received, probably because their female protagonists, come on, the one I usually embody, collided with what the viewer expected. I do not like to make comfortable films, I am interested in putting the public between a rock and a hard place, generating conversations … I believe in making films as a political act, which provokes a debate in terms of racism or sexual identification. So the fact that someone opposes my work sounds even normal. “
And there he goes in to analyze what the figure of Tammy Faye means in the US “It’s a very American story. Those preachers pushed for Ronald Reagan to become president. She herself fervently believed in that idea that we live in the best of countries, in the ‘God bless America’. And the reality is not like that, as the presidency of Donald Trump and the current alternative right have shown us ”.
“I believe in making films as a political act, so the fact that someone opposes my work sounds even normal”
It is true that in Chastain’s career there are no banal films. Although it began in 2004, the public did not face him until he became a star of the theater with Salome, under the protective mantle of Al Pacino, and after the 2010 and 2011 premieres of Debt, Take Shelter, The Tree of Life (which actually hit theaters years after it was shot) and Maids and ladies. With this film he obtained his first Oscar nomination, and returned to the Hollywood awards with The darkest night. “During the confinement, many people recovered The Sloane case, for example, that it had had a bad reception, and they rediscovered the film. Or look at Interstellar, in which they suddenly found that a love story was hidden. Of course! That’s why I did it ”.
It is Tammy Faye’s eyes a metaphor for the film industry? If the great preachers were the executives of Hollywood studios, their movements first of rejection, then absorption and finally destruction of Tammy Faye could be understood as a reflection of what has happened for decades with actresses and directors, who have battled for their own voice. “I would tell you that in the background it may be, but Tammy never fought, never considered her life in terms of fighting. He did what he wanted, he never reflected on his movements and decisions ”. And how does he carry the load of prosthetics he has needed to physically resemble his character? “They help and at the same time make work difficult. I could only use my eyes, because I even changed my voice and my movements ”. Didn’t she think of directing a story in which she was so deeply involved herself? “There were days when I went into makeup at three thirty in the morning … It was impossible with so many prosthetics, but that will happen at some point, for sure. I just need a script from which I feel that my gaze will serve to make it grow ”.
