Jessica Chastain’s Challenging Experience on Netflix’s ‘The Good Nurse’
Jessica Chastain has portrayed many real-life characters on the big screen, most recently winning an Academy Award for her portrayal of evangelist Tammy Faye Baker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Other roles include convicted poker entrepreneur Molly Bloom in Molly’s Game, Polish zookeeper Antonina Zabinska who, along with her husband during World War II, hid hundreds of Polish Jews in their Warsaw Zoo in The Zookeeper’s Wife, and 19th century activist Catherine Weldon in Woman Walks Ahead.
Upcoming real-life portrayals include a supporting role as Maryanne Trump in James Gray’s Armageddon Time, out October 28, and country singer Tammy Wynette in the biographical mini-series George & Tammy.
Continuing her real-life portrayal streak, Chastain next stars as trauma nurse Amy Loughren in the Netflix crime drama The Good Nurse, based on Charles Graeber’s book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder. The film was released in select theaters on October 19 and begins streaming on Netflix on October 26.
Directed by Tobias Lindholm, The Good Nurse is set in the early 2000s, with Chastain in the title role of a single mother with a life-threatening medical condition who works the night shift at a trauma hospital. When a patient suddenly dies and an investigation begins, she slowly begins to realize that her closest colleague, Charlie (played by Eddie Redmayne), may be responsible for the mysterious deaths of numerous patients.
The Good Nurse (2022). L to R: Devyn McDowell as Maya Loughren, Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren, and Alix West Lefler as Alex Loughren. Cr. JoJo Whilden / Netflix
The role of Amy was different from other real-life characters Chastain has played. Not just because most of her previous characters were no longer living but because this was the first time the actual person was also present on set.
“I have had the opportunity to play real people in moments of their lives, but I’ve never been witnessed (by them) as I was doing it,” Chastain said. “It’s very daunting to play someone in a scene of their life as they’re watching you do it.”
Before that daunting moment occurred, Chastain first had plenty of preparation to do for the role. She attended nursing school, mastering everything from handling saline bags and IVs to more subtle things like how to properly take off latex gloves. She learned that chest compressions on patients are often done inaccurately on screen as actors make the mistake of bending their elbows to apply pressure. Chastain was taught the correct way is to keep the arms straight, with the pressure application coming from the core.
“It was pretty thorough,” the actress said of her learning experience.
After familiarizing herself with the nursing profession, reading the non-fiction book the film was based on, and rehearsing her lines from the adapted screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Chastain had the opportunity to speak with Loughren over a Zoom call.
“You never know what’s going to open up a character for you and be the way in,” Chastain said. “I asked Amy, ‘why did you work as a night nurse?’ She said, ‘so my children would think they had a stay-at-home mom.’ I thought, okay, you’re working all night taking care of others. Then you come home, and you’re taking care of your children. There’s a sense of selfless generosity that goes along with that, of wanting to care for others. That was a huge way in for me (for the character).”
Yet nothing prepared Chastain for having Loughren present during filming. “Walking on set, wearing the nurse’s uniform, I felt so not ready to be witnessed by her in the flesh at any point. I felt so small to be able to tell this huge story of what she did and her incredible bravery and heroism… That was a difficult thing to overcome.”
The Good Nurse (2022). L to R: Noah Emmerich as Tim Braun, Nnamdi Asomugha as Danny Baldwin, and Jessica Chastain as Amy Loughren. Cr. JoJo Whilden / Netflix
There wasn’t any specific scene that Chastain found challenging to portray with Loughren present, but rather the weight of doing right by the person who went through the experiences Chastain was portraying.
“When I’m acting, I like to disappear into it, believe that it’s real and that I am going through (what my character is going through),” Chastain explained. “I remember at one point looking over and seeing her and feeling so much like I’m a fraud. Like, the real Amy’s over there. It’s not me. I felt such a responsibility. I wanted her to like what I was doing.”
“I had no idea about any of this,” the real-life Loughren confessed when she heard how Chastain felt. “I couldn’t even imagine (she) would be nervous in front of me. I was just so honored.”
Honoring Loughren’s story was not the only priority for the filmmakers and actors. Director Lindholm said all the medical personnel in the background of the film were real-life doctors and nurses. A male nurse was on set with Lindholm by the monitors to ensure that all movements, techniques, and medical jargon in the hospital scenes were accurate during filming.
“We would stop shooting if things were not correctly done,” Lindholm said. “We shot this at the end of the pandemic. We felt a huge responsibility towards the community of nurses and doctors to portray their world right since they had just carried us through a very dark time. We spent a lot of energy getting it right.”
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