--- title: Jessica Chastain: Films Oversexualize Female Action Stars description: Jessica Chastain spoke out about the film industry creating oversexualized female characters in order to draw audiences. canonical: https://time.com/4054774/jessica-chastain-hollywood-oversexualizes-female-action-stars/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-09-29T21:00:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:25:23.492Z og:title: Jessica Chastain: Films Oversexualize Female Action Stars og:description: "What’s sexy about her is how capable she is" og:url: https://time.com/4054774/jessica-chastain-hollywood-oversexualizes-female-action-stars/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfe0cb406303727/698866165f570f48bcb1da08/jessica-chastain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Actress Chastain arrives for the UK premiere of "The Martian" at Leicester Square in London og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Jessica Chastain: Films Oversexualize Female Action Stars twitter:description: "What’s sexy about her is how capable she is" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfe0cb406303727/698866165f570f48bcb1da08/jessica-chastain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Jessica Chastain Called Out Hollywood for Oversexualizing Female Action Stars > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=2e673a89-b854-4eb2-b852-15044ae5c57e&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Sep 29, 2015 9:00 PM UTC  Jessica Chastain arrives for the UK premiere of "The Martian" at Leicester Square in London on Sept. 24, 2015. Jessica Chastain arrives for the UK premiere of "The Martian" at Leicester Square in London on Sept. 24, 2015. Stefan Wermuth—Reuters  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Sep 29, 2015 9:00 PM UTC Jessica Chastain spoke out about the film industry creating oversexualized female characters in order to draw audiences to theaters. During an [interview](http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-09-28/jessica-chastain-movie-studios-over-sexualise-kickass-women?) with Radio Times to promote her upcoming role in Ridley Scott’s _The Martian_, the actress explained that Hollywood has a penchant for poorly portraying its leading lady action stars. “If you look at films like _Elektra_ and _Aeon Flux_, the problem that studios have is they try to make kick-ass women very sexualized,” Chastain said. “They have to be in some catsuit.” She also commented on the characteristics that her ideal female action hero embodies. “But if you look at the most incredible female roles, like Ripley in _Alien_, she is a very sexy woman but she’s not wearing a lot of makeup,” the actress remarked. “She’s in a T-shirt and jeans. What’s sexy about her is how capable she is. Same with Jennifer Lawrence in _Hunger Games_ – she’s not wearing a catsuit, either. Studios have misjudged it in the past and thought audiences weren’t interested in seeing a woman in an action role who’s a capable, intelligent woman and isn’t only leaning on her sex.” In _The Martian_, Chastain plays Commander Lewis, the astronaut captain of a crew on Mars. She stressed that she only cares about movies in which actresses portray roles that are as intriguing as their male counterparts’. “If the female character isn’t as interesting as the male character, I’m not interested,” she said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4054774/jessica-chastain-hollywood-oversexualizes-female-action-stars/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4054774/jessica-chastain-hollywood-oversexualizes-female-action-stars/"},"headline":"Jessica Chastain Called Out Hollywood for Oversexualizing Female Action Stars","datePublished":"2015-09-29T21:00:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:25:23.492Z","description":"\"What’s sexy about her is how capable she is\"","url":"https://time.com/4054774/jessica-chastain-hollywood-oversexualizes-female-action-stars/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Hollywood","film","Jessica Chastain"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfe0cb406303727/698866165f570f48bcb1da08/jessica-chastain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebfe0cb406303727/698866165f570f48bcb1da08/jessica-chastain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Actress Chastain arrives for the UK premiere of \"The Martian\" at Leicester Square in London","caption":"Actress Chastain arrives for the UK premiere of \"The Martian\" at Leicester Square in London","creditText":"Stefan Wermuth—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4054774/jessica-chastain-hollywood-oversexualizes-female-action-stars/","name":"Jessica Chastain Called Out Hollywood for Oversexualizing Female Action Stars"}}]}] ```