The Oscar-nominated actress and her director, Ned Benson, tell TheWrap about final edits to the acclaimed film

When it was first suggested that the theatrical release of the unique, twin-experience of “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His and Her” might require a distillation of two complementing films into a more traditional single narrative release, Jessica Chastain was less than pleased.

“I was very upset,” she remembers, offering as blunt a statement as possible through her perpetual, off-camera smile. “For me, it was absolute agony. Torture, just the most miserable experience, the idea that we were combining both of the films.”

“That is all honesty,” Chastain insists. “I was completely shocked and scared because Cassandra [Kulukundis], Ned [Benson], Jess [Weixler], and James [McAvoy], we all went into this project knowing and loving that it would be Him and Her, the male and female versions, and fighting to get it made as that. We loved the reception we got in Toronto, so then I was confused, like why is there talk about another version?” Read More

September 6, 2014   Luciana

Pictures of Jessica at the opening ceremony of Deauville Festival is now up.

September 5, 2014   Luciana

As announced a while ago, Jessica is currently at the Deauville Festival for a tribute.

Through her successive roles, (Chastain) has confirmed her emotional capacity to grab the limelight like no one since Nicole Kidman, and the Festival presented her with its “New Hollywood” award.(…) We salute her grace and talent, and the beauty of the truth she brings to her performance, which Christopher Nolan and Guillermo del Toro will raise to new heights in their forthcoming films. The tribute is a token of our affection, admiration, recognition and esteem for the talent of the recipient. For the past few years, we have been paying tribute to those actresses who embody the cinema of today, and who will form the legacy of tomorrow.” said Bruno Barde, Deauville’s artistic director.

I added the fist picture that surfaced, hoping more to be released soon.

Edit: First batch of HQ pictures has been added. Enjoy!

September 5, 2014   Luciana

NY Times Movies has published this video, in which writer and director Ned Benson narrates a sequence from “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them.” It also has an extensive article/interview with Ned about the film since its early steps. Read some excerpts below, and head over to NY Times to read the full interview:

“The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” began, Mr. Benson said, in 2005 with a screenplay for the film now known as “Him.” But when he showed that first script to Ms. Chastain, hoping she would want to play the title character, she was full of questions — and doubts.

“I wasn’t very interested in playing her in that incarnation,” she said. “Because it did feel to me that she was a product of his story, that she wasn’t a real person.

“As an audience member and an actress, I’m interested in women’s stories, too, and what they go through,” she continued. “I see this a lot in scripts: The female character is the puppet or prop of the male character. But I’ve always tried to look for characters that have their own arcs, that are flesh-and-blood human beings.”

Prodded by Ms. Chastain’s questions about who Eleanor really was, Mr. Benson set to work fleshing out the character, and then, he recalled, almost imperceptibly “it became ‘Why don’t I just write a script?’ ” because “ ‘Well, what better way to explore a relationship than both completely subjective sides?’ ”

Mr. Benson and Ms. Chastain were by that time a couple. So he was with her on the set of Terrence Malick’s 2011 film, “Tree of Life,” a breakthrough role for her, and also accompanied her to Paris, all the while revising and polishing the script, with her input.

As Ms. Chastain’s career continued its vertiginous ascent, she used her growing prestige to help recruit a supporting cast that has won Oscars, Tonys, Césars and various other awards. Isabelle Huppert and William Hurt play her character’s parents, Ciaran Hinds plays her father-in-law, and Viola Davis, with whom Ms. Chastain appeared in “The Help,” plays Professor Friedman, who sort of befriends Eleanor when she enrolls in her “identity theory” course.

“It was the red hair, the red-haired family,” Ms. Huppert said jokingly in an interview last month in New York, where she was appearing in a play. “No, she’s been declaring her admiration for my work for quite some time, and she’s a wonderful young actress and person, so I did it mainly for that.”

September 4, 2014   Luciana

Vulture has a nice article about Jessica and how supportive she is regarding other female actresses. We all know this side of her back when she was head to head with Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Oscars, in which she used her Facebook to take down any rumors regarding a feud between both. Last week, she amazingly called out Hollywood for the lack of a Scarlett Johansson lead film at the Avengers franchise. Vulture listed not only these examples, but others in which Jessica is being very supportive and enthusiast over her female actresses friends. Head over the Vulture website to read the complete list.

September 4, 2014   Luciana