Jessica living her childhood fantasy

Singapore — She’s a study in contrast.

As the warrior Sara in The Huntsman: Winter’s War, the prequel to the $400-M hit Snow White and the Huntsman, Jessica Chastain is, as the cliché goes, as tough as nails, proving herself equal to co-star Chris Hemsworth as Eric the Huntsman, the co-warrior she falls in love with despite the rule of the Snow Queen (Emily Blunt) that no two huntsmen should ever fall in love.

In the movie directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan (the Oscar-nominated visual-effects wizard making his debut as director), Blunt retreats to a faraway kingdom after she’s betrayed by her evil sister Queen Ravenna (with Charlize Theron reprising her now-iconic role) and puts up an army of huntsmen as her protectors.

The role is physically-challenging and Jessica lives up to the demands that included a lot of fighting, a lot of running and a lot of battling, so when we met her during a “round-table” (the generic term for the print interviews during Hollywood junkets) interview we were pleasantly surprised to find her so fragile-looking, so fair in complexion that she might sparkle under the sun.

Asked what she found hard playing a warrior, Chastain made the Asian journalists around her laugh, “Wearing heels, so I kept on falling.” In an interview with the Singapore magazine interview Porter, Chastain confessed that the Sara character reminded her of her childhood heroine, “the red-head warrior Sorsha” in the 1988 George Lucas film Willow. When the Sara role was offered to her, she said that her initial reaction was, “Oh my God, it’s like my childhood fantasy to be in this movie.”

It is said that finding an actress of equal caliber as Hemsworth proved to be a challenge to the producers; the role required an actress with true power.

“I responded immediately to Sara’s journey,” said Chastain who started in films in 2011, appearing without making a mark in more than seven films before she gained notice and good reviews in such film as Zero Dark Thirty (she won a Golden Globe for her performance as a CIA agent, a hard-boiled wife in A Most Violent Years and as an astronaut (co-starring with Matt Damon) in the critically-acclaimed The Martian.

“I like where she begins and where she ends,” she added, “and I like the secrets she holds. It is a character I have never played before. I like the physicality. I have done a lot of films that are dark and heavy, so I wanted to do something where I’m having a good time. This must be the most fun I’ve ever had.”

According to Winter’s War producer Joe Roth (who has re-imagined fairy tales such as Maleficent and Oz The Great and Powerful), they didn’t want this film to be as dark as the first picture (with Kristen Stewart as Snow White). “We also wanted to deliver on the romance (between Sara and Eric).”

For his part, Hemsworth said that what drew him to the prequel story had something to do with the themes that it explored. “We don’t survive without love in any form,” he said. “This movie asks the question about what love means to Eric, and Sara, and what he will do for it.”

Admitting that she’s “a huge fan of Charlize Theron,” Chastain said she also looks up to Cate Blanchett as her other idol, adding in the interview with Porter magazine, “I felt like a child compared to her elegance, her being grounded. It’s like she is who I want to be when I grow up. She has a regal quality about her that I don’t have.” In fact, Chastain looked like a younger mirror-image of Blanchett.

Since, besides the snowy setting (remember, it’s a winter’s war) and the breath-taking special effects, the movie’s dominant come-on is the love story (you know, love conquers all), the Asian journalists asked Chastain if she believed that love does conquer all.

Chastain gave a one-word answer, “Yes!”

(Distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia Pictures, The Huntsman: Winter’s War is opening nationwide today.)

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