WHEN Jessica Chastain connects with GLASS—on a much warmer Mexican evening than England’s gloomy, end-of-summer dawns—she’s winding down from a weekend straight out of a Hollywood playbook: lights, cameras, pressers, and so forth.
For Chastain, 2025 has been a triadic triumph. Known for her roles in films such as The Tree of Life (2011), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Mama (2013), and The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), the Californian actress has reached new career heights with Apple TV+’s The Savant, a crime thriller about the underbelly of online extremists, set to premiere later this month, with Chastain both starring and producing.
Fernando (Isaac Hernández) and Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) are on vacation, drinking coffee and having a good time. @Teorema 2025
As if her undeniable acting prowess weren’t enough, on 4 September she was honoured with the 2,819th star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, surrounded by an A-list crowd and her closest family members. Oh, and lest we forget—the 48-year-old also starred in Michel Franco’s latest offering, Dreams (alongside American Ballet Theatre’s principal dancer Isaac Hernandez), a resonant work that feels like a significant step toward fully recognising her talent and ethos as an eclectic storyteller. And I thought I’d been busy.
The title itself is an impassioned, provocative tale of erotic tension and obsession, meditating on race and the legacy of white supremacist ideology built across centuries of exploitation of immigrants in the United States. Its plot traces the complex narratives of migration and exile, but ultimately speaks to how dreams can be destroyed—almost instantly—by supremacist thinking and class power.
In this setting, Jennifer McCarthy (played by Chastain) is a wealthy philanthropist in San Francisco, accustomed to life’s lavish pleasures. Her full-time role is supervising high-profile arts projects, funded by the vast endowment established by her widowed father, Michael (Marshall Bell).
Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) and Fernando (Isaac Hernández) are sharing a romantic moment in their house. @Teorema 2025
One of Jennifer’s ventures is a dance school in Mexico City, where she meets and falls for Fernando (Hernandez). Before leaving, she gifts him a lump sum of cash, which he uses to cross the border into Texas illegally, eventually traveling to San Francisco to see her. Jennifer responds with reckless excitement to this race-crossed, class-divided romance.
Yet her prickly persona won’t allow her to be seen with him in public, fuelling Fernando’s rage. The panorama of silent racism and disparity permeates the film, triggering a cascade of consequences—deceit, exclusion, and the brutal weight of power dynamics.
With a profusion of achievements—teamed with the woozy elation and towering pressure they bring—Chastain hardly needs an introduction. She’s well-practiced in the art of being profiled (which, to me, feels like an extension of her own self-expression). “Do not get in a relationship like this!” she told GLASS at the Mexican premiere of Dreams in August.
“[My character] believes she’s progressive, because she uses her money to support causes she believes in. But the way I see her, she sometimes supports causes that benefit her more than others. And she becomes entangled with a ballet dancer who works for a company she finances. Overall, they have a very difficult relationship.” There is love, she admits, “but it’s completely unhealthy and should end.”
Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) is seated at the theatre watching a show. @Teorema 2025
Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) is outside the ballet at night, speaking with someone on the phone. @Teorema 2025
“It’s interesting,” she reflects, “because we shot the final sequences at the very end of the production. And as soon as they called: ‘Picture wrap on Jessica,’ I burst into tears. That’s not normal—when we wrapped Franco’s Memory (2023), I was just relieved. But here, I started sobbing. I think it’s because so much heaviness was filmed at the end, and I didn’t process it until it was over. It makes the work tough sometimes, but for me, telling stories is also a healing process.”
On playing Jennifer, she’s candid. “I don’t know if I’ve ever played anyone quite like her. She’s a piece of work, and I feel sad for her because I think she’s incredibly lonely. Her father and brother treat her like a child—an object, a doll, a pet they care for. She’s beautiful, she serves a purpose, but she can’t live her own life. She equates their control with love, and then she repeats the same dynamic with Fernando.”
Chastain’s Jennifer doesn’t understand how to love without trying to possess or control. Yet working opposite a ballet dancer was, for Chastain herself, an invigorating experience she cherished. “When Michel first told me I’d be making this film with a ballet dancer, I said: ‘Okay, I trust you.’ But when the three of us met, I wasn’t sure. Isaac was so shy, and I worried—it was going to be intense, difficult material, and he couldn’t be timid. I’m tough, so he had to be tougher. Otherwise, I’d crush him,” she recalls, her face lit with excitement but without a hint of bravado. “But then, in our first scene, I realised—because of his dancing—he was strong. Performing gave him an inbuilt confidence. Later, I told Michel, forget my doubts—Isaac’s perfect.”
Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) is at the Ballet Company in Mexico. @Teorema 2025
As our conversation winds down, I can’t help but think she’s right: art, and the sensibilities that storytelling can harmonise, can truly be a beacon for change. It’s a conviction she echoed in her Walk of Fame speech earlier this month, urging young actors to keep chasing their dreams—a belief she held since childhood, raised by a single parent and scarred by family loss.
She also called on her peers to support those who haven’t had the same opportunities. Her mindset is notable: it reflects the uncompromising mentality that her generation of actors is becoming known for. And it feels like exactly what the world needs right now. More than ever.
by Chidozie Obasi