Jessica Chastain Is Totally Unrecognizable as Tammy Faye Bakker in New Film

You’re going to have to do a double, triple, and maybe even a quadruple take when checking out these photos of Jessica Chastain in character as Tammy Faye Bakker in the new biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Chastain plays the televangelist throughout multiple decades, ending up in the late ’80s when Bakker and her then-husband Jim Bakker (played by Andrew Garfield) ultimately meet an ugly downfall after a steep climb to controversial fame within the Christian community.

For Bakker’s later years in the late 1980s, Chastain wore a full set of prosthetics, include a fake tan and wig to replicate Bakker’s iconic look, and is totally unrecognizable.

Chastain shared a handful of stills from the movie and shared her thoughts about her portrayal of Bakker, who was criticized by her fellow Evangelists for showing compassion to the LGBTQ+ community, interviewing the gay Christian minister Steve Pieters, who was suffering from AIDs at the height of the crisis, and discussing other topics considered taboo within the religion.

I found a video of her singing a song, and she turned to the camera and said, ‘God loves you just the way you are.’ Whatever God means to anyone. Chastain began in her June 1st post.

“I’ve never been baptized. I didn’t grow up within a church, but I do believe in unconditional love,” she continued. “We are all part of this world, part of humanity and part of grace. No matter where you come from, you are perfect, and you are fully and unconditionally loved. And that’s what I hope people leave the theater knowing.”

The biopic follows Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker as their fame reaches its peak, as well as the trials and tribulations of their messy downfall throughout the ’80s and ’90s. The Eyes of Tammy Faye will hit theaters September 17th.