The Mystery Of Maya: Jessica Chastain Never Met The Agent She Plays In ?Zero Dark Thirty?
Maya is staying undercover. At a press conference for Zero Dark Thirty, the film's star Jessica Chastain, who plays the resourceful and indefatigable CIA agent who tracks down Osama bin Laden said that she never met the agent who inspired her role.
"I never met Maya because she?s an undercover CIA agent ? it would not have been a good thing to do," said Chastain, who said that she based her performance on the research she was given by the film's screenwriter, investigative journalist Mark Boal. That research included reading Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and The Road to 9/11 and immersing herself in the surroundings of her onscreen job.
"I had the props person print out all of the photographs of the terrorists and I hung them in my room at the hotel," she said. (The production shot in Jordan and India.) "So even when I'd come home from the set, they were always around me."
Given the unavailability of Maya, Chastain said, "I had to approach [the role] like any other character I've played," explained, adding that when it came to "questions that I couldn't answer through the research, I had to use my imagination, [director] Kathryn [Bigelow]'s imagination and Mark's to create a character that went along the lines that respected the real woman."
The actress, who's currently starring on Broadway in the period piece The Heiress, said that the fearless, intelligent and extremely independent character she plays in Zero Dark Thirty "represents this generation of woman, and that was really exciting."
Chastain has generated strong Oscar buzz for her intense, flinty portrayal of the always-analytical Maya, and she…
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