Photo: Momodu Mansaray/WireImage
Jessica Chastainhad an inspirational plus-one.
The 44-year-old star is nominated for Best Actress at the 94th annual Academy Awards this year, highlighting her transformative performance as the lateTammy Faye BakkerinThe Eyes of Tammy Faye. Tammy Faye, who died in 2007, was a personality on the Christian television network PTL, which her husband Jim Bakker helped kickstart.
One pivotal and memorable moment of the televangelist’s career — before public scandal overshadowed her — came in 1985 when Tammy Faye interviewed AIDS activist and pastor Steve Pieters via satellite on her broadcast, defying the network’s homophobic tendencies.
At the Oscar nominees luncheon held in Los Angeles Monday, Chastain brought Pieters along.
“On my way to the Oscar Nominees Luncheon as Jessica Chastain’s date! How many nominees will be bringing a character from their movie?” Pieterswrote on Instagram, sweetly showing off his outfit for the event.
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Pieters said the Bakkers offered to fly him from California to their studio in North Carolina, but they worried the PTL crew wouldn’t be welcoming to an AIDS patient.
RELATED VIDEO: Jessica Chastain ‘Grew to Love’ Tammy Faye Bakker After Portraying the Televangelist
He added, “I’ve had people come up to me in restaurants and tell me, ‘That interview saved my life. My mother always had PTL on and I was 12 and I heard your interview, and I suddenly knew that I could be gay and Christian and I didn’t have to kill myself.’ "
In September, Chastain told PEOPLE aboutshedding new light on Tammy Faye, who had been punished “for the mistakes of her husband.”
“She always made it her mission that everyone understood, no matter who they were, that she was grateful that she got to be around them,” she said at the time. “We spend so much time and attention on how a woman presents herself in the world and not really what a woman is saying or accomplishing or doing, and there’s a lot of judgment. I’m excited now for people to focus on Tammy and the beautiful things that she did.”
The Eyes of Tammy Fayeis now available on VOD and streaming on HBO Max.
source: people.com
