Oscar Week: Producer Gigi Pritzker on Jessica Chastain in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

CHICAGO – The Oscars are this upcoming Sunday, March 27th, and one of the great performances of the year – nominated for Best Actress – is Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye Bakker in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye.” The producer of the film is Gigi Pritzker.

Jessica Chastain in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’
Photo credit: Searchlight Pictures

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is remarkable because of Chastain, who portrays the infamous televangelist from college age to advanced middle age (with the use of prosthetics). The film is a balanced and nuanced story of Tammy Faye, making significant commentary on the state of America and religion during her reign of influence. The ending of the film is an artistic use of cinema – by director Michael Sholwalter – and Jessica Chastain simply kills it.

The veteran producer of the “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is Gigi Pritzker, who previously had guided Oscar nominated films like “Drive” and “Hell or High Water.” She co-founded Odd Lot Entertainment in 2001, which merged into Madison Wells Media in 2015 (also known as MWM Studios), and also produced “Rabbit Hole” (2011), “The Way Way Back” (2013), “Ender’s Game” (2013) , “Landline” (2017) and “21 Bridges” (2019). She has recently expanded her producer duties to television with Nat Geo’s “Genius” series, and “The Dragon Prince” (2018) for Netflix. She is Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s cousin.

Gigi Pritzker in Chicago, 2019
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto at HollywoodChicago.com

In a Podtalk with Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com, Gigi Pritzker describes working with Jessica Chastain to get “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” to screen … the first question references actor Andrew Garfield and director Michael Sholwalter.

By PATRICK McDONALD Editor and Film Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com