According to USA Today, Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain first met when they were students at Juilliard — though the meet-cute was more poignant for Isaac than it was for Chastain. “I can’t remember the first time we met. It wasn’t like this magic moment of, ‘Who is that man?'” she told the outlet, while Isaac recalls “noticing” her during her Helen of Troy monologue. Either way, the existing rapport made for a positive working experience on the set of the 2014 film “A Most Violent Year.”
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the pair reunited to film “Scenes from a Marriage,” per People. “When I got the scripts, I knew immediately it was going to be like a play, because most of it’s just him and I talking for an hour,” Chastain told the outlet. She further called their chemistry a “special thing,” adding that, “it’s very rare to have it with another actor.”
That said, their close friendship made for some unexpected roadblocks during the filming process of “Scenes from a Marriage.” “It … became difficult and quite painful … where not only are we verbally but [also] physically hurting each other,” Chastain shared with Entertainment Tonight Canada. “And when you’re filming those scenes with someone that you really love — because there’s deep love between Oscar and I — it becomes very complex and difficult to navigate.” Thankfully, the duo remained close friends at the end of the project, and their chemistry raised eyebrows in 2021.
