Jessica Chastain's Latest Movie Had A 'Kids Trailer' for Working Moms
Jessica Chastain made child care a priority on the set of her latest movie
Jessica Chastain produces and stars in a new action-packed spy movie that’s all about female power, but the equality didn’t just stop on screen. The 355 stars Chastain, along with Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, and Fan Bingbing as badass secret agents with a plan to thwart World War 3, but it would kind of just be lip-service if the film was stacked with awesome women, but didn’t empower them behind the scenes. Knowing there were a lot of working parents on the set of the film, Chastain put a trailer on set just for children so that working moms didn’t feel like they had to choose between their careers and being a mom.
“I also wanna participate in projects where everyone feels empowered and valued and important to the process, and so that goes to pay, [and] that [also] goes to the fact that I love bringing families on set,” Chastain told Entertainment Tonight. “We had a trailer that was for children, and so how wonderful that, yes we can be successful and wonderful at our work, but we can also not have to shut down part of our life in order to do so.”
“And I think for the longest time it’s been like, you’re either a career woman or you’re home. It’s like, there’s no such thing,” Chastain added. “Men have been able to do both for years. Let’s just make it possible for everyone.”
Child care (or rather, the lack thereof, the expense of it) in the U.S. is a huge problem.
Recently, finance blog The Penny Hoarder surveyed 2,000 parents and 2/3 of respondents said they would switch jobs to one that provides some kind of assistance with child care. This is why it’s extremely cool that women like Chastain rise to positions of power — like being a producer on a big movie and not just an actor — and implement these kinds of workplace institutions that lift the burdens placed on the working mom. Because when you promote women and give them power, they implement stuff like on-the-job child care and lift up the other working parents around them. Win-win all around.
