Jessica Chastain becomes notorious televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in first look images from the biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye. The real Tammy Faye Messner passed away in 2007 at the age of 65. But the one-time TV personality and comedy punchline is set to live again in an upcoming movie from The Big Sick helmer Michael Showalter.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye indeed marks the culmination of a long production journey for Chastain, who first acquired the rights to Tammy Faye Bakker’s story back in 2012. A huge part of that story of course is Bakker’s time being married to Jim Bakker, an evangelist who became famous through his TV show The PTL Club but later became infamous when it was revealed he had paid hush money to former secretary Jessica Hahn for an alleged rape. Andrew Garfield portrays Jim Bakker alongside Chastain atop a cast that also includes Cherry Jones, Vincent D’Onofrio, Fredric Lehne, Mark Wystrach, Sam Jaeger, Gabriel Olds and Jay Huguley.
Searchlight Pictures has now offered up a first look at Chastain, Garfield and company in The Eyes of Tammy Faye with a series of images. See the photos in the space below (via People):
The movie will obviously cover a number of years in the lives of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker as the above images tease. It will of course also delve into the time period when Jim Bakker became embroiled in scandal, even being grilled by Ted Koppel on Nightline, and Tammy Faye became the butt of jokes on SNL, SCTV and elsewhere thanks to her heavily made-up look and strangely bubbly manner. But Chastain herself makes it clear that her portrayal of Tammy Faye will not lean toward the cartoonish, and will instead present the widely mocked figure in a more sympathetic light. Chastain told People:
“Here's a woman that I had an idea of because of what I was fed about her. Even the thing about the mascara running down her face. There is not one picture of her with mascara running down her face in reality. But people were always making her into a clown and punishing her for the mistakes of her husband, which all throughout history women have been the victim of, atoning for the sins of men."
Chastain also speaks of watching interviews with Bakker where what came across was her “capacity to love.” Clearly Chastain hopes that her portrayal will do something to rehabilitate Bakker’s image decades after she entered the public eye under the worst possible circumstances and was subjected to enormous ridicule, becoming fixed in pop culture memory as a largely negative figure. It remains to be seen if The Eyes of Tammy Faye succeeds in the goal of making people who remember the PTL scandal see its main figures in a different light, but there’s no question the story of Tammy Faye Bakker and how that scandal went down is a compelling one. There’s also no question that Oscar-winner Chastain is the ideal person to bring this story to life, given not only her acting ability but her desire to go beyond the headlines - and punchlines - and find the real person. The Eyes of Tammy Faye arrives in theaters on September 17, 2021.
Source: People