High School Dropout Jessica Chastain Is An 'Oscar Winner Banana Peel Eater'

Jessica Chastain is a lot of things. Oscar-winning actress, mother, wife, SAG-AFTRA strike supporter, human rights activist, a high-school dropout, and, for a while, a banana peel eater too!

Jessica Chastain wanted to stand out when she was in school, so much so that she was okay with being labeled a "weirdo." In the "WTF with Matt Maron" Podcast, Chastain reveals a childhood quirk.

Given that she described herself as being "nerdy" and "clueless" at the time, with a perm that made her look like Little Orphan Anne, Chastain decided she had to do something to stand out. So one day, at the table in her school Chastain simply began eating orange and banana peels. She admits it sounds terrible now but she really wanted some attention back then, and soon enough, she got noticed which made her feel, "I am something."

Of course, today, Jessica Chastain needs no attention, or even introduction, given that she won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for the movie “The Eyes of Tammy Faye," in 2021, and has also been nominated for “The Help” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” She also won the Golden Globe Award for “Zero Dark Thirty” and has another seven nominations under her belt.

Later, when she went to junior high, she took theatre as an elective and soon realized that this was something she was good at, slowly getting her self-confidence back, without resorting to eating banana peels!

Here's Chastain, talking about the importance of art in school because theatre saved her.

Chastain is usually private about her parents and reluctant to discuss her family background, although it seems she was born to teenage parents. Her mother raised her and her siblings, two sisters and a brother but tragically, her younger sister Juliet died by suicide. She was mostly raised by her mother, although credits her stepfather, firefighter Michael Hastey as the first person who made her feel secure.

That said, the childhood years were not easy. In the podcast, the actress tells host Mike Maron that she didn’t realize how much her mother struggled to put food on the table. It hit home when she learned about the Sam Shepard play "Curse of the Starving Class.” She related to a character in the play, who would often open his refrigerator and look inside, even as he knew there was no food there and it was bare. “That was the first time I realized, I was like, 'Oh my God, that's us.”

Chastain remembers doing the same as a child, going to the fridge and opening it, and staring inside, even though there was no food in it.

In an earlier interview too, Chastain had admitted there were times they would go hungry, "We did not have money. There were many nights when we had to go to sleep without eating. It was a very difficult upbringing. Things weren't easy for me growing up."

Being a dreamer definitely paid off though!

Chastain was a high-school dropout but later got her adult diploma before being awarded a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City in the late '90s.

The grant was funded by Robin Williams and while Chastain thanked him via letters, she was never able to meet him in person to do so. This is something she still regrets as she recalled that she had a chance at a restaurant once. She was sitting and eating when Williams sat down with some friends at the adjoining table. She wanted to go and talk to him but he was eating, so she decided to wait to not appear rude. Before she could do anything, Williams finished his meal and left the table in a rush, and Chastain felt chasing after him would simply be weird.

Sadly, she never got a chance and Williams passed at the age of 63, in August 2014. She regrets missing the opportunity and says that now if someone comes up to her, Chastain tells them,"Thank you for coming up because this happened to me once, where I had an opportunity to meet someone who I really wanted to talk to and I didn't take it."

You can listen to the podcast here: