What made you want to tell this story? Who she was and how it conflicted with my perception really drew me to the project. When I first watched the interview she gave with [gay pastor] StevePieters [in the mid-1980s, in which Tammy Faye expressed her support for AIDS victims], it was very emotional for me. It was 2012. I got the rights to the documentary and started figuring out how to make a movie. Where do you think her obsession with makeup and expensive clothes began? I think for her it was a form of self-expression. Having read her books, I never thought of her as being vain. In fact, the opposite; I think of her as being a very creative person. She put her creativity into creating looks for herself. What was the process like for you going through the makeup? As she aged, she seemed to put on more and more. It was a very, very long process, and I realized in the beginning it was incredibly frustrating and difficult sitting there and trying to be still. But I realized that I could use it to my advantage. So every day during the makeup process, I would listen to her voice and watch her interviews. So I had a very long runway before I had to take off in the character, because I got to use the time in the makeup trailer to set myself, to fill my head with her sound and her energy before I got on set. How much did Tammy Faye know about what Jim Bakker was doing with their money? I don’t think she knew what her husband was doing. I don’t think the government believed that she knew, because she was never tried by the United States government. So she was only in some sense tried by the tabloid media, who thought she was guilty, as often happens to women when their husbands have been accused and convicted of a crime. If Tammy was clueless as to what Jim Bakker was up to with the money, why did she feel it was OK for her to be so extravagant with her shopping? There’s a great podcast that I recommend that everyone listen to, it’s You’re Wrong About. There’s one episode where they talk about Tammy Faye Bakker and the scandal. The reality is she spent money, but she also recorded over 20 albums, wrote many books, and she gave all of the royalties to the church. So it looked like she was spending the church’s money, but in reality, she was spending money that she was making because she didn’t accept a salary for authoring those books, she didn’t accept royalties from her music. So her buying clothes to be on television where she’s hosting five hours a day and she was working very hard, I don’t begrudge her that at all. The title is intriguing. Does The Eyes of Tammy Faye have a double meaning? When we think of her, we always think of her eye makeup, but then, we’re also seeing this through her eyes. The reality is, and she talks about this in her book, Tammy’s favorite features of herself, the things that made her feel the most beautiful were her fingers—she loved her hands—and she loved her eyes. She had blue eyes and she just felt really good about herself. That’s what made her feel beautiful. So, to me, that’s what it means. But it also means what she sees and how she sees the world is perhaps different than someone else. We talk about someone who wears rose-colored glasses; it’s all about your perception of what’s around you. Your perception of what love is, your perception of people, your perception of a stranger. And I think Tammy Faye Bakker saw people in a different way than other evangelicals in her group, or other Christians. And so, for me, that’s what’s really interesting about the title, is how Tammy Faye saw the world, and her perception of things. The end of the film really focuses on that; we really go inside her perception. The roles that you take, you play strong women. Is Tammy Faye a strong woman or just a big personality? I think every woman is a strong woman. Yeah, she had a very big personality, but I think it takes a very strong woman to create what she created and to really make a space for herself. To be a minster’s wife was purely just to be the wife. Tammy Faye Bakker was a minister in her own right. She recorded multiple albums, wrote a lot of books, and created three huge Christian television networks. So, for me, I see her as a very strong woman to have accomplished everything that she was able to accomplish. Coming up next is a spy thriller, The 355, which you star in and co-produced. I understand that there’s something very unique in it, in that it was equal pay for the women. So, I was on the jury at Cannes and they were selling a lot of ensemble action movies with male casts. I was like, “Well, why don’t they ever make movies like this for women?” I had found that in this genre, whenever there was an ensemble female action group, it was cutesy or funny. I’m not disparaging that, but for me, and having worked on Zero Dark Thirty, I had the opportunity to talk to women in espionage, and there’s nothing cutesy or funny about what they do. They’re incredibly serious and very capable. And so, I really wanted to showcase that. I also wanted to turn the industry on its head in that for so long the value of female actresses, of women, have been determined by someone sitting in an office somewhere. In reality, the women are all owners of this film because we all went to Cannes together and raised the money ourselves. So, the value really lies in the artist and not in someone’s opinion that’s far away sitting in an office. I really wanted to turn the industry on its head a bit and say, “Wait a minute. Everyone’s had a chance to make this film for many years, no one wanted to, so let’s make it outside of the studio system. And let’s put the women who have been valued based on age and based on things that are the least exciting things to me, let’s put these women now in control.” And that’s really how the whole project started. This last year and a half was difficult for everyone. You spent the pandemic with your grandmother. What was it like when the world was on pause to have that time with her? It was amazing. I’m very, very close to my grandmother and I do spend a lot of time with her. I will say it was wonderful to spend time with her, but it was also very stressful because I took it upon myself to make sure that she was safe. Which means I had to make sure that nothing was coming into my house that could hurt her because she’s older and her immune system isn’t as strong. So, for me, it was wonderful to be with her every day, but I also felt an immense pressure to take care of her and to make sure that everyone around me and everyone that I was including in our pod or in our bubble was being incredibly responsible so as to not put her in any danger. You spent that time at your country house. What did you do? We spent a lot of time outside, as much as we could, in the sunshine and tried to take advantage of where we were living, because definitely in my lifetime, I’ve never seen anything like the pandemic, where you wake up in the morning and really have no idea of what you’re going to do that day except for maybe cook and read the news. I tried to take advantage of the slow pace and the just being present with people—and cooking. What are you working on now? I did a miniseries called Scenes From a Marriage with Oscar Isaac, directed and written by Hagai Levi for HBO that will premiere [Sept. 12]. I also finished shooting a film called The Good Nurse opposite EddieRedmayne, directed by TobiasLindholm for Netflix. And coming up, my next project will be a miniseries about GeorgeJones and TammyWynette. You are an alum of Natural Gourmet Institute. Did you use the pandemic downtime to create new vegan recipes? We cooked a lot. I spent a lot of time going to farmer’s markets. We have our house in the country and we had some friends who were renting houses. We all got into a pod and would have a large potluck. Next. Jessica Chastain and 49 Other Celebrities Share Their Love for Vegan Diets
