Jessica Chastain has always given her all to the characters she plays – most notably her Academy-winning role as Tammy Faye Messner – but there's one role she feels she could give more of herself to.
Among the Oscar-winning actress' break-out roles was as housewife Celia Foote in 2011's The Help, who sought comfort amid her multiple miscarriages and ostracization from fellow housewives in Octavia Spencer's character Minerva "Minny" Jackson.
Though the role landed her her very first Oscar nomination – Octavia won for the supporting actress nomination and Viola Davis was nominated for best actress – Jessica believes there still is more to the story, over ten years later.
Speaking on Entertainment Weekly's The Awardist podcast (before the SAG-AFTRA strike), the star expressed her wishes to return to the character, alongside Octavia.
"You know who I think about all the time, and I just wish I could play her [again]? Celia Foote," she said.
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Celia and Minny's bond developing throughout the movie has long been a fan favorite; notable scenes of the two include Minny serving up her former employer Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) with her chocolate pie – spoiler alert, it wasn't chocolate… – and Celia making all of Minny's recipes for them to enjoy for dinner, together.
Teasing a possible spin-off, Jessica further said: "I just want to do something, Celia and Minny, and see what happened," and mused: "You know they ended up living together and raising the baby together, they were best friends."
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She continued: "How amazing would that film be? I loved her, and I got to be a bit silly," before adding: "A lot of my characters I feel like I got to experience a lot."
Of Celia, she explained: "Celia, it was such a deep dive for me. I really threw on that character," however she admitted: "I didn't really get to mine that much material because I was a supporting part of that story. That's a character I wish I could revisit."
Though the movie also earned a Best Picture nomination at the 2012 Oscars (the win went to The Artist) it did receive it's fair share of criticism, notably from its lead star Viola, who in 2020 told Vanity Fair: "They're invested in the idea of what it means to be Black, but… it's catering to the white audience," adding: "But there's a part of me that feels like I betrayed myself, and my people, because I was in a movie that wasn’t ready to [tell the whole truth]."
She previously told the New York Times: "I just felt that at the end of the day that it wasn't the voices of the maids that were heard. I know Aibileen. I know Minny. They're my grandma. They're my mom.
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"And I know that if you do a movie where the whole premise is, I want to know what it feels like to work for white people and to bring up children in 1963, I want to hear how you really feel about it. I never heard that in the course of the movie."
Jessica's wishes for a potential sequel got a mixed reaction online, with one X (formerly known as Twitter) user writing: "I'm not interested," as another quipped: "They were good but once was enough," while others argued: "Would love to see it," and: "Love them, great idea."
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