Jessica Chastain redeems a televangelist in 'Tammy Faye'

In “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” Jessica Chastain gives perhaps the most ambitious performance of her career so far

NEW YORK -- In the nearly 10 years it took for Jessica Chastain to get made a film about the Christian televangelist Tammy Faye Messner, she studied many of the kinds of things you'd expect — the hours of television footage, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato’s 2000 documentary. But one of the most revelatory sources was a largely forgotten WB reality show from 2002.

By then, Messner had fallen from the heights of her televangelist fame after scandals brought down the multimillion-dollar ministry she and her longtime husband, Jim Bakker, built with the PTL ("Praise the Lord") Network. So there she was on “The Surreal Life" alongside D-list celebrities like Vanilla Ice and adult film star Ron Jeremy, living in a Hollywood Hills mansion for two weeks.

“You’re thinking: What is this? I know they put her in there because they thought it would create a lot of drama. But it was a beautiful thing to watch," says Chastain. “You saw her consistently being who she was, not judging anyone, but ministering to them.”

To Chastain, what stood out was Messner's steadiness of faith. As much as the highly coiffed, heavily made-up televangelist's appearance fluctuated over the years, Messner — whose finest moment may have been a 1985 show talking to gay minister and AIDS activist Steve Pieters about HIV — preached God's love to everyone. Even Vanilla Ice. He later wrote a song about her.