How Jessica Chastain Got A 'Star Is Born' Assist To Sing As 'Tammy Faye'

You’ve seen Jessica Chastain in extravagant period pieces. You’ve seen her in Palme d’Or-winning masterpieces. You’ve seen her play a hustler’s hustler. And you’ve even seen her fight supernatural, otherworldly figures. But, the one thing you haven’t seen, or heard, is the Oscar nominee sing. And that’s one of the welcome surprises in the new biopic, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” which has its world premiere at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival this weekend.

An adaptation of the 2000 documentary of the same title by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, “Eyes” finds Chastain transforming into Tammy Faye Bakker, a popular Christian broadcasting figure from the ’70s and ’80s whose life collapsed because of the financial misdealings of her husband, Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield). The duo built the largest Christian broadcasting network in history, the PTL (Praise the Lord) Network which, at its height, reportedly reached over 20 million people a day. Tammy Faye was the more liberal of the pair, willing to talk to AIDS patients live on-screen and have frank conversations about sexual impotence on the network, not necessarily typical subjects for what many believed was a Christian Conservative audience. Oh, and not only did Bakker host her show, but she almost always sang and recorded her own songs.

She may have graduated from Julliard, but Chastain admits she wasn’t super confident about her singing abilities. Enter Dave Cobb, a six-time Grammy Award-winning songwriter, and producer who was also a key member of the music team on Bradley Cooper’s “A Star is Born.”

“I was so nervous. I was like, ‘I’m not Lady Gaga. I’m so out of my comfort zone here, please.’ I was so shy. And I mean doing something really I’ve never done before. And so I was drinking Throat Coat Tea with some whiskey to kind of loosen me up,” Chastain says. “And Dave was like, ‘That’s what a lot of singers do.’ We did one day of sessions and I felt O.K. about it. And then we came back and he goes, ‘You know what, let’s sing this new song and I’m going to jack the key, way up.’ And I was, ‘What? O.K.’ So, we did it. And I was, ‘I don’t know if I can do it. This is a lot.’ He goes, ‘You can do it.’ And he was super happy. It was actually, “Jesus Keeps On Taking Me Higher And Higher (Disco Jesus).”

She soon learned, however, that as happy as Cobb was with those initial run-throughs, it wasn’t enough to convey Bakker’s distinct vocal, um, enthusiasm.

“And then he goes, ‘O.K., Jessica. Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to go back and rerecord everything we did yesterday. And I’m going to jack the key right up,'” Chastain recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, why are you doing that?’ And he goes, ‘Because you’re too comfortable, and Tammy is at a 12. She’s not at a 10. She is at 12. So, I need you to be at a 12. So the only way you’re going to be at a 12 is if I make you.’ It’s such a lesson also for the acting. Because it’s like I had to act at a 12 all the time. It’s not like I could never just kind of be relaxed as Tammy, because she was never really relaxed.”

Chastain’s singing experience with Cobb will come in handy for her next project, “Tammy & George,” a limited series about the relationship of another Tammy, Tammy Wynette, and George Jones.

In a conversation last month, Chastain discussed how she first optioned the feature rights to “Tammy Faye,” the additional source material that helped her to transform into Tammy Fae and much more.

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The Playlist: Your production company helped develop this project, right?

Jessica Chastain: Yeah. I, actually, bought the rights before I even had a production company. I was on the press tour for “Zero Dark Thirty,” and I was jet-lagged somewhere and couldn’t sleep. And then it was on TV, the doc, I’d seen it before, but I was like, “This is amazing and also so different from Maya and ‘Zero Dark Thirty.'” And I want to play different roles. So, I called my manager and I was like, “How do I buy the rights?” And I had breakfast with Fenton and Randy, and they sold me the rights to the doc. And then I had to figure out how to make it into a movie.

From a producing standpoint, what was the toughest nut to crack in adapting the doc into a movie?

Budget, for sure, because it goes through so much time, and the audience, and the PTL, all of that was really difficult. And story-wise what story we’re going to tell? There are so many directions we can go. I think those were for me the two hardest, producing wise.

From an acting standpoint, what was the hardest part? Was it the transformation?

I am someone who gets super embarrassed really easily. And I don’t even have birthday parties. When someone sings me happy birthday, it’s just mortifying. I hate it. And so there’s something about Tammy where everything she did, she is like, “I’m going to embarrass myself.” I was terrified people were going to make fun of me. I really thought that. I thought I have to pitch my voice up and it’s kind of squeaky because Betty Boop is her icon. I have to do a Minnesota accent. I have to sing. She was 100% everything. There was no variation in her song. She was yelling them. All of these aspects of who she was and also the ridiculousness. It’s embarrassing, but it’s also sweet, but it’s also cringy. And it’s also, how do we not make fun of her? And how do we honor her? That all to me was complicated. So, I would say that was the hardest part is navigating all of those aspects of playing her into a place and understanding I just had to go for everything a 100% because I couldn’t be afraid of getting made fun of.

Was this a situation where maybe in other movies you wouldn’t care about seeing the playback but in this case, did you need that sort of validation to know, “Yes, okay. I’m going in the direction I wanted”?

I didn’t watch a lot of playback. I mean, sometimes I would, if [director Mike Showalter] wanted to show me something, but it was quite immersive making the film. I mean, especially with Andrew, Andrew really is incredible in that he has the energy of what he’s doing in the moment. And so I wasn’t like, “Call me Tammy,” not like that, when it was between takes. [Chastsain speaks in Tammy Faye’s signature Minessota accent]. I talk like this a lot, even when I wasn’t shooting if I was behind the monitor too much, it felt like I was getting out of her head too much. So, I didn’t want to think too much. Once we had set the script, we improved a lot around the script, Andrew and I, but once we kind of knew the story, I trusted Michael Showalter. I really trusted so many people. I trust my producing partner. I kind of wanted to be free to just be in my body and not my head.

Besides the documentary, there is a ton of footage of Tammy Fae online. Was there any particular interview or talk-show appearance you remember watching that sparked any sort of insight?

Yeah.

Can you tell us what that might be?

Yeah, There’s multiple. So there’s a Roseanne Barr interview she did. And Roseanne was really adamant about wanting to know why Tammy wore so much makeup. And she kept trying to dodge the question. And she was so uncomfortable. And finally, she just said, “Because it makes me feel pretty, I don’t feel pretty without it.” And I was like, “Oh my God” like that and also leave her alone Roseanne like that. And then there was a moment with RuPaul, where she went on Ru’s show and she came out on stage and she had the jacket and she did a turn and she took the jacket off and let the jacket fall to the floor. And she walks over to Ru. And then she just starts talking about her clothes, “Just look at this, I bought this and I got this.” And it was like girlfriends talking. And I was, “This is genius.” And then also of course what I did every single day because it was the reason I wanted to make the film is the Steve Pieters interview. That’s on YouTube and I listened to it nonstop. That was my vocal warmup. I was constantly doing that interview.

One of the things that blew me away was your singing in this. I went back and couldn’t find any project where you’ve sung publicly before. Tammy had a very specific cadence and tone when she sang. Did you work with a singing coach to master it?

Yeah, I worked with a singing teacher, and then I worked with Dave Cobb. Do you know who Dave Cobb is?

No.

He did the music for “A Star is Born.” Oh my God! I showed up. I was so nervous. I was like, “I’m not Lady Gaga. I’m so out of my comfort zone here, please.” I was so shy. And I mean doing something really I’ve never done before. And so I was drinking Throat Coat Tea with some whiskey to kind of loosen me up. And Dave was like, “That’s what a lot of singers do.” We did one day of sessions and I felt O.K. about it. And then we came back and he goes, “You know what, let’s sing this new song and I’m going to jack the key way up.” And I was, “What? O.K.” So, we did it. And I was, “I don’t know if I can do it. This is a lot.” He goes, “You can do it.” And he was super happy. It was actually, “Jesus Keeps On Taking Me Higher And Higher (Disco Jesus).” And then he goes, “O.K., Jessica. Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to go back and rerecord everything we did yesterday. And I’m going to jack the key right up.” And I said, “Well, why are you doing that?” And he goes, “Because you’re too comfortable, and Tammy is at a 12. She’s not at a 10. She is at a 12. So, I need you to be at a 12. So the only way you’re going to be at a 12 is if I make you.” It’s such a lesson also for the acting. Because it’s like I had to act at a 12 all the time. It’s not like I could never just kind of be relaxed as Tammy, because she was never really relaxed.

What’s impressive about your performance though, is you do ground her in a way that a lot of people don’t remember. Watching so many of her interviews on YouTube, you realize how smart she was. She wasn’t this caricature created by the media at the time. Was that something you were cognizant of as well?

Yeah. I never thought Tammy was not intelligent or anything. I think she was naive in some aspects. And I think most of all, she was childlike. There was a child-like wonder of life that she had, which is actually really sweet, but it can get you in trouble. With a lot of that stuff that was going on happened, the reality also was she was a raging drug addict. And she wasn’t in these financial meetings. She was never even a part of the finances of anything, which is why the US government never tried her, but I don’t think she was not intelligent at all. I don’t know if you have any experience with people who are struggling with any kind of addiction. It’s rough because it’s like they’re not present.

Yeah. That’s so true. You mentioned how embarrassed you can feel and that it was your first project singing. In that context, is the fact that you just went through all this with Tammy Faye made it easier to do the Tammy Wynette limited series you’re about to go into production with?

It definitely makes it easier because now I’m working with T-Bone Burnett, with who we’d been working on this for a long time together now. I mean, Tammy Wynette and Tammy Faye are so different, even though they’re both Tammy’s. Tammy Wynette has this real low, sexy cigarette voice. She’s just like, there’s something so relaxed about the way she sings. Whereas Tammy Faye was like, it’s almost running naked. Tammy Faye was so out of my comfort zone and all those aspects. Tammy Wynette feels more like, okay. It’s not easier because the songs, she had more variation in her voice and the songs are harder actually vocally, but who she was, she wasn’t like constantly pushing, in the way that Tammy Faye did.

I’ve heard both of Tammy’s children have given their support to the film. Does it matter that they sort of gave their stamp of approval?

Yeah, it’s 100% matters to me because this is a family that grew up in the headlines and in the tabloids and grew up with a lot of trauma. So, I didn’t want to create more trauma. That’s literally the opposite situation [of why] I wanted to tell this story, it wasn’t to be salacious. It wasn’t to do anything like that. So, I reached out to them in the very beginning actually and had wonderful conversations with them. They answered all my questions. They told me what perfume she wore, what did she smell like, what was her favorite color, what music did she listen to. So, when I was on set, I would have Patsy Cline and Ray Charles on because that’s what Tammy loved. I could have my perfume handy from this year to this year depending on when she changed. Her favorite color was pink and leopard. So, all of this amazing stuff they gave me. And also, Steve Pieters is still alive and he’s seen the film and he’s tweeted about it. And he has been very complimentary as well. And so the idea that these people who were really there at the time and involved, feel supportive of the message that we were trying to get across, definitely makes a difference to me.

Well, congratulations. I know you’re doing the Tammy Wynette project next, but I do hope you do a musical at some point because you are a much better singer than you think you are.

Gregory, thank you for saying that. Maybe at some point, you’ll get me out of my comfort zone and then I’ll just have someone just shove me on that Broadway stage.

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” opens nationwide on Sept. 17