In Jessica Chastain’s upcoming movie, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the 44-year-old plays Tammy Faye Baker, an iconic American evangelist, singer, author and television personality. While the clips we’ve seen show that the role was perfectly fit for Chastain, the star had a few concerns about the heavy makeup used on set.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Chastian’s transformation into Baker took up to seven and a half hours every day and involved intense prosthetics, makeup and wigs. Although she sought her trusted makeup artists artists Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh, Chastain began to notice a difference in her skin after weeks of filming.
“I think for sure I’ve done some permanent damage to my skin on this,” she says. “Listen, I eat very pure and I take very good care of my skin and I stay out of the sun and all that stuff. But, it’s heavy. And when you’re wearing it all day, every day—the weight of it on your body, it stretches your skin out. I finally took it off, and I was like, ‘I look 50 years old!’ No, I’m kidding. But it’s fine. It’s for my art.”
While it was a bit offsetting to her at first, Chastain explains that you can’t let makeup take over and become the performance. “[Tammy] was so emotional, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get emotional with all this stuff all over me. Am I going to be able to see people and feel free? I just had to get used to it. So much for me is I have to trick my mind.”
