Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac’s red carpet encounter proves that their chemistry transcends the screen.
While attending the premiere of their upcoming HBO miniseries Scenes From a Marriage at the Venice International Film Festival on Saturday, the co-stars shared a sweet moment on the red carpet that quickly went viral. In a slow-motion video, Isaac can be seen looking at Chastain and kissing her inner arm, resulting in an internet fixation on the moment, even prompting a response from Mindy Kaling who quipped to Chastain: “Why is Oscar Isaac the only person allowed to kiss your inner arm.”
After the video went viral, Chastain posted a picture Monday of Gomez Addams (John Astin) similarly kissing his wife Morticia (Carolyn Jones) on the arm in an episode of The Addams Family, seemingly poking fun at her and Isaac’s red carpet moment.
Chastain further addressed the video and her friendship with Isaac during an appearance on NBC’s Today show Wednesday. “We’re acting, but also Oscar and I have been friends — we went to college together — so we’ve been friends more than half of our lives, and we know so much about each other,” she said. The pair previously starred together in the 2014 crime drama A Most Violent Year.
Let me just say, though, this is a slow-motion video, and everybody is super sexy in slow motion,” she joked. “I think it was really funny because when you look at it at regular speed, I’m looking straight ahead and he looks over at me. He just kind of goes to give me a peck on my elbow, and at the same time, I’m going to give him a hug. So all of a sudden, his face ends up in my armpit.”
She added, “We have all been locked in our houses for so long. When this video went viral, I was like, people just need to see people touch and hold each other.”
Though they were close on the red carpet, Chastain and Isaac’s on-screen counterparts in Scenes From a Marriage will be more distant. In the drama, which is a remake of a 1973 Swedish series of the same name, Chastain and Isaac portray a couple whose marriage slowly unravels. Chastain shared that she knows Isaac so well that the two “could hurt each other really strongly” while filming the intense scenes.