The makeup required for The Eyes of Tammy Faye was unusually challenging. In a behind-the-scenes clip detailing the film’s makeup, Jessica Chastain discusses her transformation into Tammy Faye, explaining why the process was so involved (and important for the role). The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021 and has already garnered Chastain two Best Leading Performance awards — one from the San Sebastián International Film Festival and the other from the Toronto International Film Festival. It seems likely the actress’s performance will be a major contender for the upcoming Oscars as well.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye follows Tammy Faye Bakker from a young girl taught to feel ashamed because she was born out of wedlock, to a mega-star televangelist, to a disgraced wife. The bulk of the film is spent on Tammy’s relationship with her husband Jim Bakker (played by Hacksaw Ridge’s Andrew Garfield), who she met at college in 1960. The couple build an empire on the idea of making Christianity fun, which includes the message that they can be prosperous and happy. Their empire falls, however, when Jim is discovered to have embezzled from the company, and their reputations are destroyed by the scandal.
Tammy Faye’s makeup was a strong part of her personal identity throughout her life and became ever more important — and dramatic — as she aged. In The Eyes of Tammy Faye, as was the way in Tammy’s life, much of Tammy’s inner conflict is communicated through her makeup, making it extremely important in the film. In order to achieve Tammy’s trademark look and carry it through the decades of her life, the makeup department had to use prosthetics, wigs, and several other tools to transform Jessica Chastain into Tammy Faye.
The first step in Chastain’s transformation was to mimic Tammy’s facial structure. To do this, a mass of prosthetics was applied to Chastain’s face. According to Justin Raleigh [via Entertainment Weekly], the prosthetic makeup designer for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Chastain had prosthetic pieces applied to her cheeks, chin, and neck to create Tammy’s facial structure, and makeup department head Linda Dowds went to great lengths to make Chastain’s lips look thinner. In an interview in the same clip, Cherry Jones, who plays Tammy’s mother, says, “The physical cost of doing this role is so tremendous because she is encased in latex, wigs, trusses, pregnancy pads, nails out to here... I don't even know how to describe what it must feel like."
What’s more, the armor-like prosthetics Chastain wore through Tammy’s younger years of the film were only the beginning of Chastain’s transformation for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. As Tammy ages through the film, additional prosthetics had to be added to Chastain’s face, topped with wrinkles and age lines. Tammy’s iconic makeup was applied over the prosthetics and as her character aged, the amount of makeup increased and became more dramatic, indicative of the loss of control she felt inside. The harder Tammy had to try to make her world bright, the brighter her makeup got. Prosthetics and wigs aside, the authenticity of the makeup was critically important in The Eyes of Tammy Faye because the makeup was so important to Tammy. Tammy’s makeup was part of her self-expression, just like her singing, dancing, and puppets. As her character says in the clip, it’s her trademark. “If I take that away, it’s not me.”