Jessica Chastain Reveals She Used To Do 'Obnoxious' Things For Attention

Jessica Chastain has recalled how she was an "obnoxious kid" who would do various things to get "attention."

"I had always thought that I wasn't an intelligent person because I did badly at school," Chastain told The Guardian over the weekend. "I was an obnoxious kid because I wasn't getting appropriate attention."

She admitted that she used to "eat banana peels in the lunch rooms" just to get noticed by other kids. The 45-year-old actress also shared she wasn't good with homework because she was busy watching soap operas all day at home.

Chastain dropped out of high school, but unlike other dropouts, she wasn't "smoking or sleeping in." Instead, she used to read William Shakespeare.

"I was in high school, and there was a trip to the Oregon Shakespeare festival and I saw Marco Barricelli play Richard III. And ... something opened up inside me," Chastain said, noting she was 15 years old at the time. "It was the strangest thing, that I could be so moved. I had the hugest crush on that actor."

The actress revealed she became "obsessed with Shakespeare" as a teenager.

"They just sat on the shelf to look good. And one was the complete works of Shakespeare. I still have it. To me it's very sentimental," she explained. Eventually, the actress played Juliet on Broadway's "The Heiress" in 2013.

Chastain was last seen in the TV series "George & Tammy," which was released earlier this month. She also appeared in a crime drama, "The Good Nurse," in October.

The actress will be next seen in an action sci-fi thriller, "The Division," which is helmed by Rawson Marshall Thurber. The movie is currently under pre-production. She will also feature in director Benoît Delhomme's thriller "Mothers' Instinct," which is expected to release next year.

On the personal front, Chastain is married to Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo since 2017. The couple shares two kids – Giulietta and Augustus.