Actress Jessica Chastain said she had no problem going nude for her role in “Scenes From a Marriage,” but she had one requirement: her male costar Oscar Isaac must go nude, too.
Chastain rationalized that her stipulation for taking off her clothes on camera was a way to create gender “balance.”
“I said to Hagai [Levi], who wrote and directed the series, in the very beginning, ‘I’m comfortable with all the nudity, but any part of my body that you show, you’re going to have to show the same with Oscar,’” the actress said during an appearance on “The View.”
Chastain noted that there’s a shower scene in episode two when she has to show intimate parts of her body for the camera — so Isaac had to, too.
“So there’s a shower scene that I have in episode two, and you see my body. So now you see his body,” the 44-year-old said. “So for me, I wanted it to be balanced.”
“The View” co-host Joy Behar chimed in that it’s “typical for women’s bodies” to have to show nudity, seemingly offering support for Chastain’s “balance” stipulation.
“Scenes From a Marriage” also shows Chastain’s character having an affair, reversing the “gender stereotypes” from the original version, which aired in 1973.
The series, when it aired in 1973, “reportedly caused divorce rates in Sweden to skyrocket,” one of the “View” cohosts said. “In this new version, the gender roles are swapped. So, now you have the wife (Chastain) as the primary breadwinner and is also the spouse who has the affair. So why was that important?” she asked Chastain.
“Well, it was exciting to me, because, I think in our society, we acknowledge that men are complicated and have flaws and have sexual desires and needs and can be selfish, and we don’t acknowledge those things in women,” the actress replied. “And I like to play women who are fully-fledged human beings, and I love the idea of showing women in their sexual desires and their wants.”
Chastain also noted that there is far more “shock” over the female character having an affair than there was when the roles were reversed in the ’73 version, apparently underscoring society’s negative gender stereotypes.
Isaac said he wasn’t aware of just how much nudity there was for him on-screen until people started to talk about it online, Cosmo highlighted.
“You get sent the stuff to look at to be like, ‘Okay, I’m fine with that,’” the actor said, appearing alongside Chastain on “The View.” “But I saw it on a laptop quite dark and I didn’t notice what was happening down there. It was a surprise when I started seeing all these things like, ‘It’s full-frontal.’ I was like, ‘No, what are you talking about?’ And I saw it, and clear as day on the big TV there, it’s there for everyone to see.”
According to a piece in The Atlantic, (which ripped the series apart), Chastain plays a woman named Mira, “a high-strung tech-company executive wrestling with the guilt of being more available for her job than for her daughter.” And Isaac is cast as Jonathan, “a philosophy professor and the family’s homemaker struggling with his unconventional role. Together, they deliver anguished, nuanced portraits that are diminished by Levi’s interruptions.”
WATCH:
After being a #HotTopic at the table, @jes_chastain and Oscar Isaac join #TheView to discuss their roles in #ScenesFromAMarriage, why they reversed gender stereotypes in the series, and the real reason behind Isaac’s full frontal scene! https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/8IKKLmNsDx
— The View (@TheView) October 15, 2021