Jessica Chastain

“I think, in the past, being brave - being powerful, being strong - were qualities that people associated with being masculine. And I think... no, I don't think - I know that now we're realizing they can be feminine, too.”

“I'm inspired by antiques. I look at things that have a wink to the past but are also reinterpreted in some way and made to feel modern... and maybe that's what I am.”

“I am not one to go for traditional female roles, because I don't think traditionally female characters are very interesting, and I don't think they represent real life.”

“When you take away healthcare from women, you're keeping women out of the workforce because you're eliminating their choice of when to start a family.”

“My whole life, I wanted to be an actor. Perhaps the seed was planted when I saw Sigourney Weaver in 'Alien', wiping the floor with the men on the ship.”

“In the characters that I play, I'm so involved in the look; it's very, very important to me. Because how a person presents him or herself to the world, they're saying something about themselves. It's their first form of advertisement.”

“If I can help create empathy and balance in society, I'm going to do whatever I can to tell stories that subconsciously create that.”

“If you want me in your film, do a favored-nation clause. Don't determine my worth based on what's left over.”

“I started a production company - all female led, actually - called Freckle Films.”

“For the longest time, people would say to me that I didn't feel very modern, that I seemed from another time.”

“We have grown up watching women be used as props on a man's journey. It's not our fault that that's what we saw as children. But we need to acknowledge that and do better.”

“I'm a true believer that you get out of something what you put into it.”

“My grandmother came with me when I moved out to New York. She stayed with me for a week. I was, you know, living in the dorm. The first year, I had a lot of anxiety, and, I remember, my teachers kept saying I had so much jaw tension.”

“My grandmother took me to a play, and... there was a little girl on stage. And as soon as I saw her on stage, I thought, 'This is my job'... I was probably, like, 7 or 8. I was very young... It was 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'.”

“I've spent my life being embarrassed.”

“I'm the unknown everyone's already sick of.”

“I'm either thought of as ethereal or fiery. And maybe that's the interesting thing about red hair: there's that fiery Renaissance connotation and the ethereal.”

“Acting, for me, has never been about wanting attention or wanting to be seen. It's funny that I'm in a profession where that's where I am. There's so much I want to express; it's about connecting with another person and the intimacy of what that is, and so I have to overcome my shyness.”

“In our society, women are valued for their sexual attraction. I'd like to get away from the sex symbol idea of what beauty is. Actually, that's probably the farthest thing from beauty, because it's makeup and hair, it's pouty lips - it's not real.”

“I sometimes go to a movie and eat my popcorn and turn my brain off. I love those movies. But the movies I like to be in, for the most part, are the ones that challenge you.”