Jessica Chastain has responded to her viral red carpet moment with co-star Oscar Isaac. While at the premiere of their upcoming HBO miniseries Scenes From a Marriage at the Venice International Film Festival last week, a slow-mo video of Oscar, 42, caressing and kissing his co-star’s arms became a horny fixation on the internet. The actress, 44, addressed the moment on Wednesday, calling it “acting.”
“We’re acting, but also Oscar and I have been friends — we went to college together — so we’ve been friends more than half of our lives,” Jessica said on TODAY. “Let me just say, though, this is a slow-motion video, and everybody is super sexy in slow motion.” The Golden Globe winner provided more context of the moment, explaining how Oscar unwittingly wound up smooching her armpits.
“I think it was really funny because when you look at it in regular speed, I’m looking straight ahead and he looks over at me and he just kind of goes to give me a peck on my elbow, and at the same time, I’m going to give him a hug,” she said. “So all of a sudden, his face ends up in my armpit. He made a joke out of it. All the photographers started laughing, and were like, ‘What just happened?'”
The actress also joked that the internet’s fixation might be rooted in the lack of human interaction amid quarantine lockdown. “We have all been locked in our houses for so long. When this video went viral, I was like, people just need to see people touch and hold each other,” Jessica said. She also reminded viewers that the duo are happily married to other people.
The actress has been married to fashion executive Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo since 2017, while Oscar has been married to screenwriter Elvira Lind since 2017, too. A few days after the viral red carpet moment, Jessica took to Twitter with an apt response: a photo of Morticia and Gomez Addams from The Addams family while promoting the release date of Scenes From a Marriage.
Based on a 1973 Swedish miniseries of the same name, the show will follow a crumbling marriage with Jessica and Oscar in the lead roles. If their viral red carpet video is any indication, the chemistry will probably be palpable.