Jessica Chastain “knew what she was getting into” when she signed up for the low-budget independent movie Memory.

After a run of big studio projects, the Oscar-nominated actress returned to her indie roots with Michel Franco’s drama, in which she plays a recovering alcoholic struggling with childhood trauma.

According writer/director Franco, Chastain knew exactly what she was signing up for when she agreed to star in his no-frills production.

“By the time we had a Zoom, she had already read the script and watched a few of my movies so she kind of knew what she was getting into,” he told Cover Media. “Nevertheless, I told her, the budget is not huge, and you know, I don’t work with trailers, and I work in a certain way. And she was like, ‘Yes, Michel. I know what I’m getting (into). This is exactly what I wanted to do.’ And she meant it.

“She was glad to go into this kind of experience… It’s less bulls**t, you know, there’s not so much noise around, it’s all about the actual work… But she’s fantastic, she loves acting and she loves collaborating.”

Franco discovered one issue hiring a beautiful Hollywood actress to play his lead character – all of the outfits looked “too good” on her and she didn’t look like a troubled single mother.

He told Chastain that her character would shop at U.S. store Target so she went to a branch and bought a bunch of clothes.

“She started sending me photos from a Target store,” he recalled. “She asked, ‘Which (ones) do you like?’ I said this and this. She’s like, ‘I’ll just buy them all and we’ll figure out.'”

Chastain clearly enjoyed Franco’s filmmaking method because they have already made a second movie, Dreams, and are working on a third collaboration.

Memory (memoryfilm.uk) is in U.K. and Irish cinemas from Friday 23 February.

© Cover Media