Jessica Chastain Describes What It Was Like Calling Out Cannes' Representation of Women

Jessica Chastain is looking flawless on the cover of Elle Canada‘s September 2017 issue.

Here’s what the Oscar nominated actress had to share with the mag:

On claiming her place: “Everyone has to learn how to live in an environment that has not made it easy for women to claim their place, so I think it’s all women’s responsibility to step forward. My goal is that a girl will watch The Martian or Interstellar and think ‘I want to be an astronaut or a quantum physicist.’ It’s important to show powerful women who are good at their jobs because young girls need those examples.”

On questions she gets asked: “To be honest, I get pretty great, varied questions. I will say that the very first year I did press was when The Tree of Life came out and I was this unknown. At the end of the movie, my character kisses Brad Pitt’s character, and I was always getting asked, ‘What was it like kissing Brad Pitt?’ You get that whenever you do a movie with a famous male star, and I’m like, ‘Guys, come on!’ because it focuses on something that it’s not about.”

On calling out the movie selection at Cannes: “I’ve always been someone who speaks her mind, but the thing is I love Cannes so much. I talked to the festival director beforehand about what I was witnessing in those films and how it made me feel about how the world sees women. He actually said, ‘You should say something.’ It was never about me going against Cannes or stabbing someone in the back…. But my experience with the press is that sometimes things can be taken out of context, so in a situation like that, where I’m in front of all these journalists, speaking what I believe in my heart, I feel very vulnerable. In many cases, the media like to find something negative or turn it into a fight, especially when it pits women against each other, and I was aware of that while I was speaking. Like, ‘Here I go speaking my truth, but someone is going to misinterpret these words.’”

For more from Jessica, visit ElleCanada.com.