Here’s a female-driven story that should hopefully not embarrass audiences of either sex.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Jessica Chastain has joined the cast of the Southern integration drama, “The Help” which already stars Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Bryce Dallas Howard. That’s a lot of ginger locks too.
Based on the beloved New York Times bestselling novel by Kathryn Stockett, the film centers on three ordinary women in 1962, Mississippi: Aibileen Clark the black maid (Davis); twenty-two-year-old Skeeter (Stone) who has a a degree, but her mother will not be happy til she’s engaged; and Minny Jackson, Aibileen’s best friend and the sassiest woman in Mississippi (Spencer). Howard plays an antagonistic woman who dislikes the maids. Chris Lowell from “Veronica Mars” and “Life As We Know It” is also said to be part of the cast.
According to THR, Chastain is playing “Celia Foote, an insecure Southern lady constantly trying to fit in with the high society women who reject her.” Mainstream Audiences don’t really know Chastain well and she’s about to make her big debut in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”with Brad Pitt later this year, but she was good on her four episode arc of “Law & Order: Trial by Jury” (yes, we watched it).
Tate Taylor’s (“Pretty Ugly People”) is directing this Civil Rights-era tale and it shoots next month.