As a child, Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain thought larger-than-life televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker was a silly woman with over-sized eyelashes.
But now she is playing her in a new film she has changed her mind.
‘I didn’t watch religious television, but I knew she was silly and easy to make fun of.
She was on the cover of tabloid magazines, so I thought she must be a terrible person,’ Chastain said of Bakker who, with her fraudster husband Jim, used to broadcast a religious TV show from their Christian HQ in Heritage, North Carolina, in the 1970s and 80s.
Hollywood actress Jessica Chastain is playing televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in a new film
The star’s new movie — called The Eyes Of Tammy Faye — opens here on February 4
Pictured: Andrew Garfield as Jim Bakker and Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker
Several years ago, though, she caught up with a documentary called The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, that made her see Bakker in a new light. ‘I felt guilty I’d judged her so harshly,’ she said.
Her new movie — also called The Eyes Of Tammy Faye — opens here on February 4. The picture, on which she’s also a producer, is her way of atoning.
When we met to discuss the picture, in a Soho hotel, she treated me to a bit of Bakker.
‘Baz!’ she squealed, grabbing my elbow. ‘Do you like my shoes, honey?’
If I hadn’t already seen her uncanny, and ultimately moving, portrait — twice — I might have legged it.
Flashing around in my head were memories of occasionally watching the real Tammy Faye and her husband on TV when I lived in the States in the early 1980s.
Everything about them was flamboyant, and they were always being spoofed on late-night television shows. And Chastain has her down to a T.
I remember hearing from friends who’d actually worked with Mrs Bakker, back in the day, after she’d left the church, and after her husband was jailed for his crimes.
She wore her heart on the outside, they said; and was always excited about meeting new people.
‘She was easy to make fun of,’ the actress acknowledged. ‘But she was authentically sincere.’
Chastain spent the best part of seven years researching her subject: reading books, studying film footage and meeting those who’d known her, including her two children.
Bakker with her fraudster husband Jim, used to broadcast a religious TV show from their Christian HQ in Heritage, North Carolina, in the 1970s and 80s
Chastain spent the best part of seven years researching her subject: reading books, studying film footage and meeting those who’d known her, including her two children. Pictured: Jim Bakker and Tammy Faye Bakker in 1982
Tammy’s son Jay was initially ‘a little nervous and slow to trust’, she said, but he was happy when he saw the finished movie.
The actress said she liked the fact that Tammy never ‘labelled anyone’, even though she herself was ‘an easy target in a cynical world’.
Which made her maxim — ‘We’re all just people, made outta the same old dirt, and God didn’t make any junk’ — all the more admirable.
‘Her husband made some mistakes — and Tammy was vilified for it,’ she said. ‘But really, it was because of her appearance. Women have been commodified in society. So much is about physical appearance and that’s how women have been judged.’
Once she started to dig down into Tammy Faye’s character, she found that the high-pitched, little girl voice, flamboyant silhouette — and the rest of the whole eye-popping package — may all have been a counterpoint to her mother, who was drummed out of the church because she was a divorced, remarried woman.
‘She was shamed, and Tammy’s the physical embodiment of that shame,’ Chastain reckoned.
‘People would look at her and go: ‘She’s the kid from a broken family.’ That’s how it was.
‘She knew what it was like to be unloved and unwelcome. Her thought was to connect and reach out to strangers, because she believes in God’s good grace.’
The kicker is that they were Pentecostal. ‘The church doesn’t allow make up, ding-dong!’ she said, checking to make sure I was keeping up.
Whatever made Tammy tick, Chastain gets it on screen, gloriously. And so does Andrew Garfield, as hubby Jim: the ‘man of God’ who can’t keep his hands to himself … and out of the till.
Garfield’s having a moment, as they say on American talk shows. He’s in this and he’s also been garlanded for his role as songwriter Jonathan Larson (he wrote the musical Rent) in the Netflix film tick, tick, BOOM!
And he’s in the Spider-Man hit No Way Home, with Tom Holland and Tobey Maguire. ‘He’s a shapeshifter,’ Chastain said, admiringly, of her co-star.
On Sundays, during location filming, the pair would attend Sunday service at the church the Bakkers built.
They were tentative about going ‘because are people thinking: ‘Oh, it’s the Hollywood, liberal elites coming to church!’ ‘ However members of the congregation were ‘kind and welcoming’.
Chastain has worked steadily through the pandemic. She shot mini-series Scenes From A Marriage, with Oscar Isaac; and is currently shooting a six-part drama about Tammy Wynette and George Jones called George And Tammy.
She also has three films in pre-production, ready to shoot back to back.
Her London theatre debut in a new version of A Doll’s House, directed by Jamie Lloyd, was to have opened back in 2020, but was postponed due to the pandemic.
Lloyd has done further work on the adaptation and they’re hoping to re-assemble towards the end of the year; though it’s not yet confirmed to be happening.
Laurie Kynaston who won an Evening Standard Award for Emerging Talent three years ago for The Son, at the Kiln, has done it again.
He’s electrifying as Melchior, one of a group of passionate teens who have to hide their desires from their prying, repressive elders.
The show is Spring Awakening: the musical adaptation by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik of Frank Wedekind’s 19th-century tale.
Laurie Kynaston (pictured) who won an Evening Standard Award for Emerging Talent three years ago for The Son, at the Kiln, has done it again
Director Rupert Goold and choreographer Lynne Page have put a spring in the show’s step.
It’s certainly much livelier, and more exciting, at the Almeida Theatre than previous versions I’ve seen on Broadway and in London.
There’s hope, unconfirmed, of it transferring into the West End. But there’s a problem with finding an appropriate theatre.
Kit Esuruoso, Taylor Bradshaw and Thomas Grant were good in key roles when I caught the show on Tuesday. Cameras were filming it the previous night.
The show is Spring Awakening: the musical adaptation by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik of Frank Wedekind’s 19th-century tale
