A tense situation. Jessica Chastain opened up about the “weird” experience of accepting an Oscar following Will Smith‘s altercation with Chris Rock earlier in the night.
“Well … It was a weird night,” the Scenes From a Marriage star, 45, told Porter magazine in an interview published on Monday, June 27, when asked about accepting the Best Actress Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. “I walked into a very charged energy in that room, and I was trying to figure out … how to just breathe and create a calmness.”
Chastain’s big moment was overshadowed by an incident that took place earlier in the night, when Smith, 53, walked on stage and slapped Rock, 57, after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. The Everybody Hates Chris creator compared the Matrix actress’ bald head to “G.I. Jane,” which the Smiths felt was a dig at her alopecia.
The King Richard star — who won an Oscar of his own shortly before Chastain’s name was called — tearfully apologized for his actions during his Best Actor acceptance speech. “I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people and to be a river to my people,” Smith said at the time. “I want to apologize to the academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees.”
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum issued a statement the following day, apologizing to Rock for the incident and explaining that he “was out of line and I was wrong.” As part of his attempt to make amends, Smith resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in early April and was later banned from attending or participating in any Academy events, including the Oscars, for a period of 10 years.
Despite the tense atmosphere, Chastain used her speech to speak about suicide prevention and advocate for support for the LGBTQ+ community, and she told Porter that she knew she wanted to use her time onstage to take a stand. “I’ve lost someone very dear to me to suicide,” the Molly’s Game actress said, referring to her sister Juliet, who died by suicide in 2003. “I knew I wanted to touch on that because, with everything that was going on, it was clear that we were moving into an area in our politics of intolerance and discrimination.”
She continued: “I didn’t know everything I was going to say and there were moments where I started to get emotional so I pulled it back, but I had an idea of what I wanted to use that global platform to create if I got up there.”
The Interstellar star, who has long been an advocate for suicide prevention, first opened up about losing her sister in December 2014. “It completely changed the person I am,” she told InStyle at the time. “A movie, Oscars, a dress, if someone thinks I’m stupid … I realized nothing is that important.”
Three years later, Chastain revealed that Juliet died just three days before she graduated from Julliard. “Losing my sister did bring us together as a family,” she told the Belfast Telegraph in December 2017. “When you lose someone, you never want to lose another person again. Even a stranger. That’s why I have so much empathy for people struggling with depression. Because society doesn’t really understand it, they’re made to feel like they’re being selfish.”
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
