How Jessica Chastain’s Difficult Childhood in Sacramento Influenced ‘Memento’

Every Oscar-winning career has a key turning point, and for Jessica Chastain it came when she landed her first paid acting job in the Bay Area.

“Travis Angle was my Romeo, set in modern-day Northern Ireland. Well, not these days, but you know, back then,” Chastain recalls, explaining that the story takes place during the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles, when Belfast’s Catholic and Protestant populations clashed.

“God, I feel so old,” Chastain, 46, said with a smile. “It was an incredible experience. While I was there, Travis got into Juilliard, and that made me think that maybe I should audition.”

In her latest film, Memento, she plays a social worker and recovering alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when she is reunited with a man from her traumatic past (Peter Sarsgaard), who is now suffering from high-grade dementia. school reunion.

During a recent Chronicle interview, Chastain, nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead Actor for her role, and Sarsgaard, who won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival, where the film premiered, sat on separate couches in a seventh-floor office. Industrial Light and Magic in San Francisco, both trying to adapt to West Coast times and waiting to answer questions after the Academy screening at the visual effects company.

Chastain just returned from the Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco, where she headed a jury that included actors Joel Edgerton, Alexander Skarsgård and Camille Cottin, as well as directors Dee Rees and Joanna Hogg; Sarsgaard flew west after appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in New York the night before. They’re drawing thousands of people to talk about the low-budget drama from Mexican director Michel Franco, whose provocative filmography includes After Lucia (2012) and Sunset (2021).

“It’s only worth doing it for a movie you love and an actor you love,” Chastain said of the busy travel schedule. “And I’m really excited to do this in support of Peter because I think he’s great in the film.”

Sarsgaard, 52, who has been married to actress and director Maggie Gyllenhaal since 2009, said he jumped at the chance to finally work with Chastain.

“I’ve been a big fan of hers for so long, and I felt like I could do this with her,” he said.

Chastain, who is married to and has two children with Italian nobleman Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, has spoken in the past about her difficult childhood in Sacramento, where she grew up poor in a dysfunctional family. She said she used this experience to prepare for the role of Sylvia.

“I think most of us, unfortunately, know someone who struggles with addiction, and some are very close to me,” Chastain said. “My family was like that. So yeah, I didn’t read books about it because I had a very close experience with someone who was struggling with it.”

She also talked about who she was as a person at the time, as she explained during a virtual press conference days before her ILM appearance.

“I look back at myself in high school and I see myself as a completely different person,” Chastain said. “I like the idea that I’m constantly evolving and growing, and I definitely like a more complex version of myself than I had as a teenager.”

During a Q&A at ILM, Sarsgaard said he felt that energy and it helped him in the difficult scenes he filmed as dementia patient Saul.

“It’s not really something you want to do with just anyone,” Sarsgaard said of working with Chastain. “I was comfortable doing it this way because I was comfortable with my partner. “This way of filming will really expose all the flaws.”

Franco, who arrived about halfway through the call due to travel delays, told the crowd that Chastain was fully committed to the project.

“I told her that Sylvia should buy her clothes like at Target and not be glamorous or anything like that. That’s what she did,” the director shared. “She sent me pictures from Target, an assortment of clothes – ‘What about this?’ ‘How about these?’ And I was like, “Yeah,” and she said, “Well, I’ll take them all.” »

Chastain was so enthusiastic about working with Franco that they had already completed another film together, which they filmed in San Francisco over the summer. Apart from the working title “Dreams”, they refused to reveal any information about the project. The Hollywood Reporter, however, said that the film “suspects a possible forbidden romance between a woman who works at an arts foundation and a ballet dancer,” and that it stars San Francisco Ballet dancer Isaac Hernandez and English actor Rupert Friend. (“Asteroid City”)

“With Tammy Wynette and Tammy Faye, I started on the outside,” she said. “I looked at how they presented themselves to the world. I listened to their voices and where they were presented, how they laughed, and all these little things. After that it helped me come into my own.

As Sylvia, “it all started within herself and all the memories she had that she was trying to forget. What’s happened? Why did it become sovereign? What was her worst day? What did her father look like? What does she smell like? “I had to answer all these questions for myself.”