Ms. Chastain attended the Juilliard School in New York City. She soon commenced a professional stage career.

The breakthrough in her film career came when she was cast by director Terrence Malick in his film The Tree of Life, opposite Brad Pitt. The movie was an Academy Award nominee for the Best Picture of 2011, as was another film that she starred in, Tate Taylor’s The Help, adapted from Kathryn Stockett’s novel. Ms. Chastain’s performance in the latter earned her Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, Critics’ Choice Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, among other honors. With her fellow actors from The Help, she shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

She was again an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominee for her starring role in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, for which she won both Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards. Following completion of the latter, she made her Broadway debut in Moisés Kaufman’s staging of the classic play The Heiress.

Ms. Chastain’s other films include John Madden’s Miss Sloane, for which she was again a Golden Globe Award nominee, and The Debt, also for Focus Features; Ridley Scott’s The Martian, which was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture; J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year, for which she was named Best Supporting Actress by the National Board of Review and for which she a Golden Globe Award and Spirit Award nominee; Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter, for which she was a Spirit Award nominee; Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie; Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak; Cedric Nicolas-Troyan’s The Huntsman: Winter’s War; John Hillcoat’s Lawless; Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Interstellar; and Andrés Muschietti’s Mama, for which she received an MTV Movie Award nomination.

In 2014 Ms. Chastain received the first-ever Critics’ Choice Award for Most Valuable Player (MVP), recognizing the breadth and depth of her accomplishments.

She will soon be seen in Susanna White’s drama Woman Walks Ahead, starring as 19th-century artist and activist Catherine Weldon; Xavier Dolan’s The Death and Life of John F. Donovan; and Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game, an adaptation of Molly Bloom’s memoir, starring as Ms. Bloom opposite Idris Elba.

After producing and starring in Ned Benson’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby and executive-producing and starring in The Zookeeper’s Wife, Ms. Chastain has inaugurated her own production venture, Freckle Films, which has a first-look overhead deal with Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray’s transatlantic financing and production banner Maven Pictures.

Director Niki Caro Opens Up to the LA Times

Director Niki Caro Opens Up to the LA Times