Jessica Chastain adds a new title to her name: doctor!
On Thursday, May 23 Zero Dark Thirty actress, 47, received her honorary doctorate from The Juilliard School for her “outstanding contributions” to the fields of film and theater, the university said in a statement.
Now, two days after the pomp and circumstance, Chastain is giving her Instagram followers a behind-the-scenes look at the ceremony.
After filming her entrance into the school’s Irene Diamond building and showing off her ticket to the ceremony, Chastain could be seen putting on her cap and gown — though she joked that her head was too big for a Ph.D.
“It’s too tight,” the Oscar winner was seen telling staff members helping her prepare for her honor. “I have a huge head. It’s a shocking thing… I think it’s long.”
After her arm was cut off to make it bigger, Chastain posed for photos with the rest of the honorees before marching into the hall for the ceremony, waving goodbye and blowing a kiss to the camera before receiving her hood and honorary degree.
“Dr. Chastain has a nice ring to it 🎓,” she captioned the post. “thank you @juilliardschool for this honor and the custom hat 🙃 congratulations class of 2024.”
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Besides being an honorary doctor, Tammy Faye’s eyes the actress is also a graduate of Juilliard, having graduated in 2003. The The New York Times In 2012, she opened up about moving to New York from her small town in Northern California for the first time when she started school in 1999.
“It was hard,” she said times. “I never really spent time in a city like this. But everything I craved was here. I had never seen a foreign film, and Lincoln Center was across the street. One day I was sitting in the cafeteria and Baryshnikov was at my table. It was it’s everything I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl.”
Jessica Chastain takes the stage at Juilliard on May 23, 2024.
jessica chastain/Instagram
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Chastain also said that Juilliard was notoriously competitive at the time, and students could be expelled at any time if they weren’t doing well.
“I was worried the whole time that I would be excluded. It was unfounded, because in my sophomore year I actually got a scholarship,” Chastain said in an interview, recalling how she hardly hung out with friends because she was studying so much during her studies. “…There was a bar here called Malachy’s where everyone went to hang out, and I think I only went twice in four years. I’m just obsessed. I’d read or watch movies. All my life I’ve wanted to be here, so when I was, I wanted to soak up every bit of it.”
She also had some famous classmates during her time at the school, including Oscar Isaac, her classmate Scenes from a marriage.
Some of Chastain’s famous friends took to her video to congratulate her on her big academic achievement. Julianne Hough wished her a big “congratulations 👏🙌❤️” and Tatum O’Neal left many heart and hand emojis of praise in the comments.
Other honorary degree recipients Thursday included dancer Carolyn Adams, members of the Emerson String Quartet, and composer and conductor Tania León.
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Source: HIS Education