Marriage brings challenges for every couple – even when that marriage is only make-believe. During a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Oscar winner Jessica Chastain (The Eyes of Tammy Faye) explained why her friendship with Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight) changed after they played husband and wife in the 2021 HBO miniseries, Scenes from a Marriage.
Based on Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 Swedish TV series of the same name, Scenes from a Marriage follows Mira Phillips (Chastain) and Jonathan Levy (Isaac) as they attempt to maneuver their way through a failing marriage. Chastain described her experience as “intensely emotional” and “very tough,” which led to a shift in her and Isaac’s connection off-camera.
“I love Oscar, but the reality is, our friendship has never quite been the same [after Scenes from a Marriage],” Chastain said. “We’re going to be OK, but after that, I was like, I need a little bit of a breather. There was so much ‘I love you, I hate you’ in that series.”
Chastain said that while she experiences “so much joy” as an actress, roles like the one in Scenes from a Marriage are so different from her real life, which might be a reason it was so hard for her to disconnect from something so intense without actually disconnecting fully.
“There’s a lot of catharsis [in my job],” she said. “But then I live a very quiet life. I don’t have to have these tortured things in my life. I play them and I experience them, and then I come home and I live quietly and peacefully.”
If Jessica Chastain’s friendship with Oscar Isaac changed after the miniseries finished production, you couldn’t tell when they were both promoting it at the Venice Film Festival that year. The duo went viral for their playful chemistry on the red carpet, which included Chastain cupping Isaac’s face and Isaac kissing her bicep.
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, Scenes from a Marriage being covered here wouldn’t exist.
