Jessica Chastain Quotes

It's not often you get female characters who don't fit into a box.

I can't imagine writing a book without some strong female characters, unless that was a demand of the setting.

I portray female characters, so I have the opportunity to change the way people look at them. Even if I wasn't consciously doing that, it would happen anyway just because of how I present as a woman, or as a person. I present in a way that's not stereotypical, even if I'm playing a stereotypical role.

We thought we'd write a good script for women, giving them the fun roles that generally men get.

I grew up with my cousins, who were as close as brothers, and frankly, I didn't like what girls were expected to do. I liked horseback riding, playing football, going to rodeos. I wanted to be in jeans all the time, and I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to conform to a certain standard, so I didn't.

There weren't roles for females in comedies for a really long time.

A lot of the scripts I read and the characters I get are 'the girl' in romantic films, and I don't know how comfortable I am, or the world is, with me being that.

The women I know are smart, interesting people who aren't just there to service the men's stories, so I don't know why our art continues to do that.

There aren't a lot of roles written for women who are strong willed.

It's still not easy to find roles that offer more complex images of women.

One thing Middle-earth is short on is the feminine.

I sometimes get asked: 'How come the men in your stories don't have such strong characters?' And I'm like: 'I don't care.' I just want to find out about all the different lives a woman can live. But my feminism has never been against men. It's not erasure; it's just they're not the focus. In real life, they're quite nice.

There aren't enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the 'poor heartbroken girl.'

'That's What She Said' is not Hollywood's standard picture of women: preternaturally gorgeous, wedding obsessed, boy crazy, fashion focused, sexed up 'girl' women. These are real women, comically portrayed, who are trying to wrestle with the very expectations of womanhood that Hollywood movies set up.

It's nice to see more of those meaty female characters emerging because so often in the industry, it's always about the males.

What's so dumb is that women are 50 per cent of the population, and they want to spend money to see movies where they're portrayed as three-dimensional characters.

I can't tell you how many incredible directors I long to work with, but then I look at their IMDb page, and they haven't made a single movie about a woman.

When you look at the roles I've done and the roles coming up, they're all strong. I guess I'm more drawn to that than that kind of submissive role females can be categorised as.

It's nice to get my teeth into something that isn't a stereotypical female role.

Apparently, I hear from people I always play strong women. I don't see them that way.

With every movie, I am trying in my own little way to do whatever I can to change the way female characters have been presented and how an actress that comes from a family outside the industry is making an impact.

I would always stand up for women, but I don't want women's rights and all that sort of thing. I love to have men around, and I suppose if you're a true feminist, you get on and do it yourself. I love it when someone says, 'I'll get your coat' or, 'I'll look after you', or offers you a seat on the bus. I'm thrilled to bits. I'm not a feminist.

I see the portrayal of any believable female character as feminist.

It's not that I only want to make films about women, but from my experience, I have been very interested in the women who play these characters.

I feel it's so rare that young females are portrayed as being anything more than a stereotype.