THE AMERICA ONE NEWS
Jun 1, 2025  |  
0
 | Remer,MN
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET 
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge.
Sponsor:  QWIKET: Elevate your fantasy game! Interactive Sports Knowledge and Reasoning Support for Fantasy Sports and Betting Enthusiasts.
back  
topic
NY Post
New York Post
1 Aug 2023


NextImg:Jessica Chastain needed a ‘bit of a breather’ from Oscar Isaac friendship

You may recall the bicep kiss heard ’round the world.

When Oscar Isaac, 44, planted his lips on the left arm of his “Scenes from a Marriage” co-star Jessica Chastain, 46, on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, he appeared to have shed the baggage of their fictional broken marriage.

But in a new Vanity Fair profile, Chastain revealed filming the gut-wrenching HBO miniseries took a toll on her longtime friendship with Isaac.

“‘Scenes from a Marriage’ was very tough,” Chastain told the outlet in a story published Tuesday. “And I love Oscar [Isaac], but the reality is, our friendship has never quite been the same.”

The Oscar winner‘s relationship with the other Oscar dates back to the turn of the century, when they were classmates at Juilliard. The pair have remained close and even played a married couple in “A Most Violent Year” (2014), after Chastain personally campaigned for Isaac to have the role.

When Oscar Isaac kissed Jessica Chastain’s bicep at the Venice Film Festival in 2021, the A-listers went viral for their red-carpet chemistry.
Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images

Isaac and Chastain go nose-to-nose in "Scenes from a Marriage."

Chastain and Isaac have had difficulty recovering their easy friendship after starring in the drama “Scenes from a Marriage.”
Jojo Whilden/HBO

When they reunited for “Scenes from a Marriage,” the stars’ closeness sparked electric on-screen chemistry — but portraying a couple going through divorce made work difficult to leave behind when the cameras stopped rolling.

As Chastain said in the Vanity Fair interview, “We’re going to be okay, but after [filming the miniseries], I was like, I need a little bit of a breather. There was so much I love you, I hate you in that series. But there’s so much joy in what I get to do.”

“Scenes from a Marriage,” a gender-swapped remake of the 1973 Ingmar Bergman series of the same name, follows Chastain’s Mira as she divorces Isaac’s Jonathan amid uncertainty about parenthood, careers and fidelity.

The co-stars previously discussed the emotional experience of production when the series premiered in 2021, with Chastain telling The New York Times that she “cried every day for four months” during filming.

Chastain and Isaac hug at Venice Film Festival promoting their miniseries.

Chastain noted she and longtime pal Isaac “are going to be okay,” but that the intense emotional experience of the miniseries left her feeling vulnerable for a long time after filming.
Getty Images

She even joked to The Hollywood Reporter that the raw material “ruined” her friendship with Isaac, though the two repeatedly cited their deep mutual trust as a pillar of the show’s success.

Something certainly clicked, as the miniseries gave way to an Emmy nod for Isaac for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, as well as Golden Globe nominations for both actors.