By James Mottram
“I’ve been lucky,” Jessica Chastain tells FilmInk. “I find dynamic roles. But still, so often, when I’m reading a script, I think, ‘This part is great, but I’d love to share a scene with another woman. Why am I always working with men?’” There are certainly men in The Huntsman: Winter’s War – chief among them Aussie actor, Chris Hemsworth – but the ever-prolific Chastain (most recently seen in The Martian and Crimson Peak) gets two highly impressive female co-stars this time out in the form of Charlize Theron and Emily Blunt. “I had a scene with Charlize which was so awesome,” Chastain laughs on the film’s set between takes. “She was right in my face playing Queen Ravenna. She’s so badass! There’s more comedy in this film, and there are more women too.”
A sequel to 2012’s highly impressive fairytale update, Snow White & The Huntsman, The Huntsman: Winter’s War (which marks the directorial debut of the first film’s visual effects supervisor, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan) strikingly shifts gears, taking the story backwards and then forwards, unveiling both the chain of events leading up to Snow White & The Huntsman, and then revealing what takes place in the aftermath of the final battle of that film. Vitally, it also expands to reveal how the characters of Hemsworth’s Huntsman, Eric, and Charlize Theron’s Queen Ravenna, are so deeply and dangerously intertwined. Long before the evil Queen Ravenna was defeated by Snow White (Kristen Stewart) in the first film, she watched silently as her sister, Freya (Emily Blunt), suffered a heartbreaking betrayal and fled their kingdom. With Freya’s ability to freeze any enemy, the young ice queen has spent decades in a remote wintry palace raising a legion of deadly, emotionally isolated huntsmen – including prize recruits, Eric and Sara (Jessica Chastain) – only to find that they have defied her one demand by falling in love, and putting their relationship above the huntsman’s cause. Years later, when Freya learns of her sister’s demise, she summons her remaining soldiers to bring The Magic Mirror to her so she can harness its power. But once she discovers that Ravenna can be resurrected from its golden depths, the wicked sisters unite in a new, doubly horrific campaign to rule the land. Now all that stands in their way are Eric and Sara.
No stranger to on-screen action (witness her richly physical turn in 2010 The Debt), Chastain was handpicked for the role of Sara by The Huntsman himself, Chris Hemsworth, who fronted the actress out of the blue at The Critics’ Choice Awards. “I’d never met him before, but we share an agent,” Chastain explains. “He was so nice. He came up and said, ‘I’m doing a movie, and I’d like you to read the script.’ They sent me a picture of the character first, before I got the script, which I’ve never experienced before. It was a sketch, and she looked awesome! I was just joking with everyone saying, ‘I’ve got Mother Of Dragons hair.’ And then also from the sketch, there is a movie from my childhood which I love called Willow, and I particularly loved that red-headed badass, Sorsha, played by Joanne Whalley. I loved the dynamic between her and Val Kilmer’s Madmartigan. When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up to be like Sorsha. With The Huntsman: Winter’s War, it was like, ‘This is my chance!’”
Once on set, the importance of the distinct and empowering look of Sara remained tantamount for Chastain. “Oh, it’s everything for me,” the actress says of her character’s wardrobe and make-up. “A lot of that, of course, is thanks to [costume designer] Colleen Atwood. I asked for little things, like having daggers on my feet. The thing about the Huntsmen is that they all wear similar armour, so it’s important to have differences. The scar on my face, for instance, was never written in the script, but [director] Cedric Nicolas-Troyan and I talked about it in pre-production, and we added it. I love scars. It’s so beautiful when someone has a flaw, so that was added when we started shooting.”
With three female lead roles in The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the film is a quiet stand-out when it comes to big budget Hollywood filmmaking, particularly in light of the current frank and open discussions on the issue of gender disparity in the film industry. “I wouldn’t say that things have changed, but I’d say that it’s on the brink of changing in terms of diversity,” says Chastain. “It’s a responsibility for everybody to talk about it. It’s important for women to be comfortable talking about it, and comfortable with the fact that the pay gap is so large. There are things that happen that are just crazy. But we also need to not have just women talk about it. We need to have journalists talking about it, and we need the media to be aware of it, and also men! I’ve never met Judd Apatow, but I love him, and I love how supportive he is of women’s rights. The more men that get involved, the better it is going to be for everyone.
As it stands, the Hollywood pay gap is still a vast, gaping one. “I’ve heard stories that are just insane,” Chastain sighs. “For example, ten years ago, the female actress is Oscar-nominated, and she was more famous, and it was her film, but she brought a male actor onto it, and he gets paid double! That’s a normal thing. It still happens, but the more that it’s talked about, the more embarrassed men will feel. And the perks package? When Zoe Saldana was talking about how she was fighting so hard to get a nanny, and male actors were flown in on private planes, it puts everything into perspective.
Despite her renowned thoughtfulness off-screen, and her on-screen sense of restraint and control, Chastain reveals that her next career move might be a surprising one. “I’d love to do a comedy,” she says. “I’ve been looking at some things. I’d love to do something really broad, even though I don’t do a lot of comedy. After [the gothic horror movie] Crimson Peak, which was such a dark character, I thought, ‘I need to start doing lighter things.’ I’m actively now searching for my next roles, and I hope that they will have a ‘lightness’ about them.” You need to get to know Judd Apatow, FilmInk laughs. “No, exactly,” Chastain smiles. “Hook me up!”
Chastain does admit, however, that her future work could include a return to The Huntsman: Winter’s War’s tough-as-nails Sara. “I don’t think we need a spin-off film, but I really love this character,” the actress smiles. “I can’t imagine another film…but I guess that you say that after every film. After Snow White & The Huntsman, when they were telling me about this, I thought, ‘Where would it go for a sequel?’ But then when I read the script, I thought, ‘This is really good.’ So, sure, I’d love to play this character again.”
The Huntsman: Winter’s War is released in cinemas on April 7.
