Jessica Chastain on channelling Tammy Faye Bakker and why she will never release an album

The Eyes of Tammy Faye will likely put Jessica Chastain in line for a third Oscar nomination – but she reveals what still makes her feel awkward.

Jessica Chastain has a solemn promise to make – unlike countless actors turned wannabe singers who have come before her, she’s never going to release an album.

The twice Oscar-nominated star of hit movies including Molly Bloom, Zero Dark Thirty and The Martian is once again drawing some serious awards heat for her portrayal of the all-singing, all-dancing, all-preaching televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. But although Chastain fully commits to the performance beneath layers of make-up and 1980s era spangles and sparkles, she says she found the scenes where she was required to sing to be “very daunting” and deeply uncomfortable.

Nashville music producer Dave Cobb pushed Chastain way out of her comfort zone to accurately represent Tammy Faye, whose full-tilt vocal stylings were born in the simple, sound-system-free, revivalist tents of her youth.

“I get embarrassed so easily and Tammy really didn’t,” says Chastain.

“(Dave) made it uncomfortable for me, which then gave me extra energy to sing the songs because she had more energy than I ever thought was humanly possible.

“It also was really a way into the character in terms of acting as well. But no, there will not be a Jessica Chastain album, although I am on Spotify now, which is a strange thing, the idea that I’m an artist on a music app.”

Jessica Chastain in the studio in a scene from The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Chastain has been long fascinated by the rise and fall of Tammy Faye, who came from humble beginnings in Minnesota and married Jim Bakker in 1961 after the pair met at bible college. Together, they began a ministry, travelling around the US as Jim preached and Tammy Faye sang and played the accordion.

After launching a successful puppet show on Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, they struck out on their own and by the late 1970s, their Praise the Lord broadcasting network and Heritage USA theme park were generating hundreds of millions of dollars from faithful believers who, quite literally, bought into their prosperity gospel message.

But after infidelities on both sides, allegations of fraud and a scandal in which more than $300,000 of church finds were used to pay off a woman who accused Jim of rape, the empire came crashing down.

The sight of a heavily made-up, tearful Tammy Faye standing by her man during press conferences and TV appearances became fodder for gleeful comedians and that was the ridiculous figure that Chastain recalled until watching the 2000 documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Chastain was so taken by her spirit and story that she bought the rights and it became the source material for her biopic of the same name, which stars Andrew Garfield as Jim.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye star Jessica Chasatain with director Michael Showalter.

“Even up until we released the film, every time I said, ‘Oh, I’m playing Tammy Faye’, so many people go, ‘Oh, yeah, the mascara running down her face …’. And I said – because I studied her for seven years, ever since I bought the rights – ‘There’s not one video or picture of her with mascara running down her face’, yet that was a memory I had as well.

“And I realised that all of our memories were from sketch comedy where they would make fun of her doing that. But the reality of who she was so different. And that was an interesting thing to explore.”

While Tammy Faye was undeniably a deeply flawed individual who willingly embraced the riches, luxury and trappings that came from the flock she and her husband fleeced, Chastain wanted to re-evaluate “a woman filled with so much compassion and love”, who was unafraid to wear her heart on her sleeve.

Tammy Faye famously interviewed AIDS sufferer Steve Peters on her show during the height of the hysteria of that epidemic during the ’80s.

“She educated … millions of Christians that to be Christian is to love everyone,” Chastain says. “And to be a mum and dad, if your child comes out to you, you love through anything and that’s the way with Jesus. And so she was radical and she was rebellious. I love that kind radical, open-heart love.”

Andrew Garfield as Jim Bakker and Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Tammy Faye died of cancer aged 65 in 2007 and her family and friends – including singer daughter Tammy Sue and preacher son Jay – were wary of the film project at first, worried their mother would once again be portrayed as a clown or a figure of fun. Chastain worked hard to win them over and says she now considers them to be friends.

Given the footage of Tammy Faye readily available that shows off her distinctive look and voice, Chastain was convinced she could get the external aspects right.

But the internal struggles that set Tammy Faye on her path to dizzying highs and shameful lows were more challenging and for that, Chastain wanted to consult the people who knew her best.

“What had created in her this obsessive desire to make sure everyone feels loved and welcomed,” she says. “I needed to understand where her heart lies. That’s what I focused on the most so it never felt for me that I was sending something up and making it a joke. I had to really feel her feelings in the scenes.”

The Eyes of Tammy Faye opens in cinemas Thursday

Originally published as Jessica Chastain on channelling Tammy Faye Bakker and why she will never release an album