Jessica Chastain recalls the infamous Oscars 2022 altercation. Image Source: People
Jessica Chastain recalls the infamous Oscar altercation.
Actress Jessica Chastain who won the 94th Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Tammy Faye in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ recalled accepting her award just after Will Smith walked on stage to slap fellow co-star and comedian Chris Rock who made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head which is actually the result of alopecia.
Jessica Chastain recently spoke to Net-a-Porter and shared that when she was called up to accept her award she tried to bring a calmness to the atmosphere and called the 94th Academy Award a weird night in a nutshell. She explained that she walked into a very charged energy in the room and was trying to figure out how to just breathe and create a calmness.
While accepting her award, Jessica Chastain addressed intolerance, discrimination and her purpose as an actress in her speech. At the time, Jessica stated that legislation that is both discriminatory and racist is sweeping the nation with the sole intention of dividing the populace even more. She continued by saying that she thinks about Tammy Faye in situations like these and is inspired by her courageous actions of love when violence and hate crimes are committed against innocent civilians all across the world.
To be accepted for who they are, accepted for who they love, and to live a life free of acts of violence and terror, Jessica Chastain, who has received praise from all over the world for playing Tammy Faye, said that she is inspired by her passion. She sees this as a guiding principle that moves us, the people, forward.
She stated during the interview with Net-a-Porter that she had lost someone dear to her to suicide and because of it she knew she wanted to touch on that topic during her speech. Jessica shared that especially with everything that was going on, it was clear that the world was moving into an area in the politics of intolerance and discrimination. She added that she was unsure of what she was going to say and there were moments when she started to get emotional so she had to pull herself back but she had an idea of what she wanted to say. Jessica shared that there were so many people after the ceremony who came upto her and could see how surprised she was because she is the one who likes to put her head down and added that she is not a very public person and does not really embrace fame so to have a moment of global recognition is so different to her everyday life.
Talking about Will Smith who has since then apologized to Chris Rock publicly and also announced that he has resigned from the Academy which later announced to ban him for next ten years. Will Smith said that he deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to be celebrated and celebrate for their tremendous and extraordinaty work and added that he is heartbroken and is going to now work to put his focus back on those who deserve the attention for their work and acheivements.
Will Smith mentioned that change takes time and he is committed to doing the needed work to ensure that he never again allows the violence to overtake reason. After the Academy announced their decision to ban the actor, he accepted and said that he is going to accept whatever the Academy decides because he acted emotionally and did not think about the other people who were present in the room at the time.
Jada Pinkett Smith on a recent episode of Red Table Talk addressed that controversy and said that she hopes that the two talented and extraordinary human beings Will Smith and Chris Rock would find a way in future and sit and talk things through and move past this and added that they will talk about the infamous altercation sometime later but until then the couple and the family of Smiths are going to keep doing what they have been doing for past couple of years, living and exploring life.
