Jessica Chastain wants 'The Help' sequel about Celia and Minny (original) (raw)
Jessica Chastain wants The Help sequel about 'best friends' Celia and Minny living together
"You know they ended up living together and raising the baby together, they were best friends," the Oscar-winning actress tells EW's Awardist podcast.
Published on August 14, 2023 02:58PM EDT
The Help characters Celia Foote and Minny Jackson have many more of those fried chicken lunches ahead of them if Jessica Chastain gets her way.
The Oscar-winning actress tells EW's Awardist podcast in an interview for her Emmy-nominated turn in George & Tammy that she often thinks about reprising her role in director Tate Taylor's Best Picture-nominated film, in which she played a supporting part as an aspiring mother who befriends her maid, Minny (Octavia Spencer, who won an Academy Award for the role), amid intense racism in 1960s Mississippi.
"You know who I think about all the time, and I just wish I could play her [again]? Celia Foote. I just want to do something, Celia and Minny, and see what happened. You know they ended up living together and raising the baby together, they were best friends," Chastain explains. "How amazing would that film be? I loved her, and I got to be a bit silly."
Though both characters navigated grim circumstances, Chastain says that she felt "so happy" playing Celia among the film's stellar cast, which also included Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Allison Janney, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sissy Spacek, Leslie Jordan, and Cicely Tyson.
Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer in 'The Help'. Dale Robinette/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy Everett
"A lot of my characters I feel like I got to experience a lot. Celia, it was such a deep dive for me. I really threw on that character and I didn't really get to mine that much material, because I was a supporting part of that story," Chastain continues. "That's a character I wish I could revisit."
In addition to giving her a role in a hit that eventually grossed $169 million at the domestic box office, Chastain's performance as Celia led to her first-ever Oscar nomination. She'd later be nominated again the following year for her leading role in Zero Dark Thirty, before winning Best Actress nearly a decade later for The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
Listen to Chastain's full interview above, and catch up on EW's Emmys coverage in the Awardist podcast feed below.
— Reporting by Gerrad Hall
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