In the opposite of a Hollywood feel-good story, Jessica Chastain apparently was given “quite a lot of flak” by her peers for wearing a mask to the Academy Awards this past March.
She made the revelation recently to The Hollywood Reporter at their annual Tony Nominees Roundtable. Chastain, nominated for Best Leading Actress of a Play for her performance in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, explained that she was criticized during the Hollywood awards season for wearing a face mask in order to prevent contracting COVID-19 while performing in the play.
“We were testing every day on our show, and even if you had no symptoms, if you tested positive for COVID, you were out for a week — and I was meeting people at the stage door who flew in from Shanghai and flew in from all over the world. To be out of the show for a week? It just felt like it was so irresponsible,” Chastain explained.
“So I was wearing the mask at the Oscars. I got quite a lot of flak for that. A lot of people thought I was making some political statement. I don’t know what they thought,” she said at the roundtable.
Chastain continued, “I’ll tell you, the best thing is someone at the stage door gave me a mask that said, ‘I’m On Broadway.' But yeah, the SAG Awards, the Oscars, a lot of people were like, ‘What are you doing?!' I just couldn’t get sick. And I didn’t. I haven’t missed a show.”
At least some of Chastain's fans came to her defense on Twitter. One user posted a picture of Chastain at the Golden Globes in a sparkly mask to match her silver shimmering gown, with a caption that read “and you know who didn’t get COVID at the Golden Globes?” Chastain then retweeted the post, chiming in “Phew!”
😘 Phew! 😷 https://t.co/qUGL1zu0jg
— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) January 16, 2023
Jessica Chastain always stuns on the red carpet, mask or no mask, so her colleagues might want to think twice before mask-shaming one of Hollywood's brightest performers again.