Jessica Chastain Talks Patriarchy & Boys Club In 'Molly's Game' In WSJ Magazine's Talents and Legends Issue

Actor Jessica Chastain covers the February 2018 issue of WSJ Magazine's annual Talents and Legends issue. Ludivine Poiblanc styles Chastain in elegant, draped looks from Proenza Schouler, Max Mara, Loewe and more, lensed by Annemarieke Van Drimmelen in a sepia-tone retro mood. 

Chastain is interviewed by Leslie Bennetts in 'How Jessica Chastain Is Changing the Hollywood Game'. One of Hollywood's most ardent feminists and a co-founder of the new 'Time's Up' campaign and foundation, the happily-married actor zeroes in on her incredible performance in 'Molly's Game'.

“To me, this story is a lot about patriarchy,” Chastain says over coffee in a Midtown Manhattan hotel near her apartment. “We do live in a patriarchal society. It means that men make all the rules. Molly’s father is the moral authority of the household, and you weren’t allowed to be a separate human being from his viewpoints. And, of course, in her business, the men were always trying to control the industry around her.” 

“Player X is constantly trying to take away her business, and she’s trying to learn to play by his rules,” Chastain explains. “What was really upsetting to her was that there was no justice, no sense of right or fairness. The players were all men, and the rules would change based on the unfair whims of men. That’s a line Aaron Sorkin has in the movie, and I remember when I read the script, I was like, ‘What? Where has this writer been all my life?’ ”

At its core, the film is about power and the unequal ways that each gender is able to use it, with women subject to constraints and penalties that don’t burden their male counterparts. “Molly spends the movie surrounded by powerful men, and when she makes one of those men feel less powerful, the man has to banish her,” Sorkin observes.

Romantic love is not the answer in 'Molly's Game', writes Bennetts. “It’s a female protagonist, and society has been conditioned that a woman needs to be in a relationship in order to be complete.”

Ironically, writes Anne on AOC, perusing what other websites have chosen to focus on in the interview, the reality that one of the most powerful women's rights voices in Hollywood is happily married to Italian businessman Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo gets the spotlight. Case closed. ~ Anne