Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac’s friendship hasn’t been the same since Scenes From A Marriage

We’re all waiting with baited breath for AMPTP to reopen negotiations with SAG-AFTRA: for all of the really pressing reasons, of course, but also because we want our damn press tours back! They’re juicy! They’re awkward! They’re unbelievably steamy! Steamy enough, perhaps, to make Jessica Chastain question the entire nature of her decades-long friendship with Oscar Isaac. Now that’s the type of drama AI could never reproduce.

In a recent, pre-strike interview with Vanity Fair, Chastain opened up about filming the 2021 series that led to that infamous red carpet moment. “Scenes From a Marriage was very tough,” she said. “And I love Oscar [Isaac], but the reality is, our friendship has never quite been the same.”

Chastain and Isaac have been besties for decades, ever since the pair both attended The Juilliard School in their early 20s (per Entertainment Weekly). But fans shouldn’t worry too much about their friendship, the actor said: “We’re going to be okay, but after that, I was like, I need a little bit of a breather. There was so much I love you, I hate you in that series.”

So, okay, she might not have explicitly mentioned the viral red carpet arm kiss (and/or sniff?) moment, but we all saw it. Multiple times. And we know they’re both talented actors, but they’re also real humans with real emotions, who clearly share a lot of history and a lot of chemistry. Between that and the turbulent nature of the material, the whole situation sounds like a rollercoaster that would send any one of us into a tailspin.

As Chastain summarized: “I feel like I have the best job in the world because I get to have these experiences. They’re so out of this world and feel like they’re mine. But then I live a very quiet life. I don’t have to have these tortured things in my life. I play them and I experience them, and then I come home and I live quietly and peacefully.”