Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain is an American theater, film, and television actress. She is known for her roles in the films The Help, The Debt, Take Shelter, and The Tree of Life. She broke out in 2011 with seven films premiering. She won over 35 critics awards and was widely named as breakout star. For her role in the film The Help she received Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. In 2012, she was named to the list of Time 100 most influential people of the world.

Early life and education
Chastain was born and raised in Northern California. She is one of five children. Her mother is a vegan chef, and her father (one source says stepfather) is a firefighter. Chastain is also vegan herself. She grew up as Jessica Howard, and later took her mother's maiden name as her stage name. Chastain had a "blue collar" upbringing around San Francisco.

She attended El Camino High School in Sacramento in 1995 and attended Sacramento City College, where she was a member of the debate team (1996–1997). In 1998, she appeared as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet staged by TheatreWorks, a professional theater company in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Chastain then attended the Juilliard School in New York City as a member of the Drama Division's Group 32 (1999–2003), which also included Michael Urie. At Juilliard, she was a recipient of a scholarship made available by Robin Williams. She was an active participant in the drama department and starred in several theatrical productions and student film projects. She graduated from Juilliard with a B.F.A. degree in 2003.

Jessica Chastain

Career
Chastain's first professional role came in 2004 for a TV movie adaptation of Dark Shadows. She later appeared in such television series as ER, Veronica Mars, Close to Home, and Law & Order: Trial By Jury.

In 2008, she made her film debut as the title role in Jolene, for which she received the Seattle International Film Festival Award for Best Actress. The movie was based on the short story, Jolene: A Life by E. L. Doctorow, itself inspired by Dolly Parton's song, Jolene It was later released in the United States on October 29, 2010.

In 2011, Chastain showed a wide variety in her roles, including: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and the crime thriller Texas Killing Fields.[19][20] Chastain starred as Celia Foote in The Help, which was based on Kathryn Stockett's novel of the same name. The movie received positive reviews from critics and became an immediate box office hit grossing $169,620,611 in North America, and $35,700,000 in other territories, as of February 2, 2012, for a worldwide total of $205,320,611. Chastain continued to receive rave reviews for her performance in the 2011 film Take Shelter playing the wife of a small town man plagued by apocalyptic visions. In her next film role Chastain portrayed a young Mossad agent in John Madden's The Debt, which premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. The movie was released on August 31, 2011 and Chastain received positive reviews from critics and viewers for her portrayal of a young Helen Mirren. The movie went on to become a moderate box office hit.

On November 29, 2011, Chastain was announced as New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances in The Help, Take Shelter and The Tree of Life as well as gaining an Independent Spirit Award nomination the same day for her performance in Take Shelter. On December 1, 2011, she received a Satellite Award nomination as best supporting actress for her performance as Mrs. O'Brien in The Tree of Life, she went on to win the award and many other honors from critics including the: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress. In April 2012, Chastain entered the list of Time 100 most influential people of the world.

Chastain has also completed a film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome alongside Al Pacino and has filmed supporting roles for other adaptations such as Coriolanus. Her most recently announced project is John Hillcoat's prohibition era drama, Lawless.

Personal life
Chastain has not revealed her age to the media, which has led to contradictory accounts of her age by various newspapers and periodicals. In an April 30, 1998, article about a stage production in which Chastain was starring, Metroactive magazine identified her as a 21-year-old. In a September 26, 2011, article, The Daily Telegraph stated that she was 30 years old: "'I don’t like revealing how old I am,' the 30-year-old tells me..." Other sources that state she was 30 years old at the time are a June 13, 2011, article in People magazine, a November 21, 2011, article in Mail Online,[24] and a comment by Gary Oldman in a Time Magazine article published on April 18, 2012. The Associated Press gives her birthdate as March 24, 1977.

Chastain owns a three-legged dog named Chaplin.
Source: en.wikipedia.org

Actress Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain sexy in dress