The winner of the Best Lead Actress Academy Award has just been announced, and the honor goes to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye. Based on the documentary of the same name, The Eyes of Tammy Faye serves as a biopic of evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, from her humble beginnings through the rise and fall of her televangelism career. Chastain, who also served as a producer, was unrecognizable and yet powerfully convincing in the role.

Chastain was in some good company for this award, making it anyone’s guess who would ultimately win. Even so, there had been a lot of speculation that Stewart would win the Oscar, as she had impressed critics and viewers greatly with her performance. The other nominees included Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter), Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers), Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos), and Kristen Stewart (Spencer).

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

The big win followed many other big awards getting presented to other talents at the ceremony. Earlier in the night, Ariana DeBose made history with her win for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the Steven Spielberg musical West Side Story. This made her the first openly queer woman of color in history to win an acting Oscar. Troy Kotsur of CODA also made history as the first deaf man to win an acting Oscar for his Best Supporting Actor win.

Jessica Chastain Has Pulled in Many Awards for The Eyes of Tammy Faye

     Searchlight Pictures

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is directed by Michael Showalter and written by Abe Sylvia. Along with Jessica Chastain in the lead, the film also stars Andrew Garfield as her husband, Jim Bakker. Cherry Jones and Vincent D’Onofrio also star. The film did not exactly light the box office on fire but garnered positive reviews with particular praise for Chastain’s performance. Along with her Oscar, the role also earned Chastain wins at the Sag Awards, Critics Choice Awards, and Golden Globe Awards.

“I just wanted to tell her story so bad,” Chastain said of her desire to do the biopic, per W Magazine. “And in fact, the documentary filmmakers were so sweet. They told me recently that on our first meeting, right before they gave me the rights to the story, they were like, ‘I don’t think Jessica could do this.’ They’d been so supportive and given me hundreds of hours of unused footage from the doc. They absolutely took a leap of faith by allowing me to tell her story.”

On getting the right look, Chastain added, “Tammy has such a different face shape. She’s more square than I am. I’ve worked with makeup artist Linda Dowds on all of my films, and we’ve been talking about it for years—I studied Tammy for seven years. So, yes, we talked about makeup. We would find interviews where she would say the exact product she used. Always waterproof mascara, always. The only images of [her with mascara coming down her face] are from comedy sketch TV shows.”

Congrats to the Best Actress winner along with the rest of the nominees, and everyone else honored at the ceremony.