Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain has emerged as one of Hollywood's most sought after actresses of her generation. Born and raised in Northern California, Chastain attended the Juilliard School in New York City. While there, she starred in Romeo and Juliet and went on to receive glowing reviews for her performances in The Cherry Orchard opposite Michelle Williams at Williamstown, and Richard Nelson's Rodney's Wife opposite David Strathairn, off-Broadway at Playwright's Horizons.

In 2014, she starred in Christopher Nolan's box office hit, Interstellar, and in the drama A Most Violent Year. In 2015 she appeared in Legendary Pictures' Crimson Peak, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, in which she starred alongside Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Hunnam.

Following a whirlwind year in 2011, in which Chastain received several nominations and accolades for her work from the LA Film Critics, British Academy of Film and TV, Broadcast Film Critics, HFPA, Screen Actors Guild and the Academy, Chastain's success reached new heights in 2012, when she was featured by Time Magazine as one of the "100 Most Influential People in the World."

Her performance in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark 30 garnered several awards, including the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, and her second consecutive Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In the film, Chastain stars as Maya, whose character was inspired by a real CIA analyst who was instrumental in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark 30 earned several nominations, including Best Film (among many others) for the NYT Critic Awards and Independent Spirit awards.

Chastain also starred in the horror film Mama, directed by Andres Muschietti for Guillermo Del Toro's production company Toma, for which was nominated for an MTV Movie Award in the category Best Scared as Sh*t Performance. Additionally, she starred in The Weinstein Co's Lawless, opposite Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy, as Maggie Beauford. Chastain also lent her voice to DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted as the character of Gia the Jaguar. Meanwhile she also made her Broadway debut in the classic stageplay "The Heiress."

Chastain starred in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, opposite James McAvoy and Viola Davis, written and directed by Ned Benson. She also played the lead role in the drama Miss Julie, a film adaptation of August Strindberg's play, directed by Liv Ullmann, which premiered at the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

In the aforementioned year of 2011, she starred opposite Brad Pitt and Sean Penn in the Academy Award nominated drama Tree of Life, written and directed by Terrence Malick for River Road Productions. The film won the Palm d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and the Chicago Film Critics award for Best Picture.

Also in 2011, she was seen in Ami Mann's feature, Texas Killing Fields opposite Sam Worthington and Chloe Grace Moretz; Miramax's The Debt alongside Helen Mirren and Sam Worthington; as Virgilia in the on screen adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus opposite Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler; and in Jeff Nichol's Take Shelter opposite Michael Shannon, which won a plethora of awards during the 2011 film festival circuit and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination.

Chastain is well known for her role as Celia Foote, an insecure Southern lady constantly trying to fit in with the high society women who reject her, in DreamWorks' Academy Award nominated adaptation of the best-selling Kathryn Stockett novel The Help, which won numerous awards in 2011 including Chastain's Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, Golden Globe nomination, Screen Actors Guild nomination and Critics' Choice nomination.

Jessica returned to the stage in the Los Angeles Wadsworth Theatre production of Salome, where Academy Award winners Estelle Parsons (director) and Al Pacino handpicked Jessica to play the title role of Salome opposite Pacino. Continuing the collaboration, producer Barry Navidi commenced the film version of the play, entitled Wild Salome, directed by Pacino, where they filmed behind the scenes and portions of the play's production.

This led to her landing the dynamic title role in Jolene, a Dan Ireland directed production, opposite Rupert Friend, Frances Fisher and Dermot Mulroney. It earned Chastain the Best Actress Award at the 2008 Seattle Film Festival.

She stayed on stage in 2009, playing the role of Desmonda in the classic play Othello opposite Phillip Seymor Hoffman. Directed by Peter Sellars, the play ran in Vienna and Germany before finishing in New York.

Twentieth Century Fox