Jessica Chastain has called out a “shady and clickbait headline” connected to a story about her shopping for her own film costume.
The actor stars in upcoming drama film Memory as Sylvia, a recovering alcoholic who is dealing with childhood trauma. For the independent film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival this month, Chastain wore no makeup, had no trailer and bought her own costumes for the role.
Speaking to IndieWire about the film, Chastain said: “I’m not doing a movie to be pampered. If I want to be pampered, I’ll go to a spa. I’m doing a film to work and to be creative, and I don’t need to sit by myself in a trailer.”
The actor explained how she went shopping for Sylvia’s clothes in Target in Nashville. “I think I spent like $130 and I brought it back, and we did a fitting,” she added.
“[Director] Michel [Franco] told me that our cinematographer Yves [Cape] goes, ‘She still looks too chic!’ There was a lot of let’s try and just scrub Jessica of any kind of movie star feeling that we can, which also I appreciated. I appreciated that I was doing my own hair every day. It was fun.”
Following the interview, The Los Angeles Times published an article with the headline: “Jessica Chastain shopped at Target to get into character as a normal person ‘who leads a simple life’ for her new movie.”
Such a shady & click bait headline. The interesting part wasn’t that I shopped at Target (I do it all the time- best holiday decorations & school supplies) it was that I got to get into character by shopping for my own costumes. That’s the not normal part. https://t.co/CYCQZTTZrj
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) September 13, 2023
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday (September 14), Chastain shared the article and wrote: “Such a shady & clickbait headline. The interesting part wasn’t that I shopped at Target (I do it all the time – best holiday decorations & school supplies) it was that I got to get into character by shopping for my own costumes. That’s the not normal part.”
Following the criticism, the headline was subsequently changed to: “Jessica Chastain went shopping for her own costumes at Target for her new movie, Memory.”
Alongside Chastain, Memory stars Peter Sarsgaard, Merritt Wever, Jessica Harper, Elsie Fisher, Brooke Timber and Josh Charles. A release date has yet to be announced.