![]() “I get very possessive when playing a character I want to access their secrets and fears. But as events progress, she is able to be equal with humans, as she is with animals. Jessica was interested in exploring that dichotomy in her character.”įor Chastain, “there was a lot in the script to work with, and one thing I noticed was that she never really questions her husband in the beginning of the film. We needed to look at how frightened she was, how her strength had to come from a deep reserve. But still, she found her will, her strength, to act with immense bravery, in spite of that vulnerability, or maybe as a result of it. “Antonina, I feel, was extraordinarily vulnerable it’s what made her so tender with animals. What particularly fascinated me was that she felt compelled to make a sanctuary for frightened, persecuted people. That she would not speak to this makes her an interesting subject, and is one of her contradictions – that’s ‘contradictions’ rather than ‘faults,’ which are not the same things. Producer Workman remarks, “I don’t think Antonina ever called herself a hero. Accordingly, Chastain undertook two months’ worth of piano tuition before shooting began and then continued her training even after filming began. She had played a small Chopin piece for an earlier movie, but this time she needed to master at least a minute each of several different composers’ works. Ĭhastain, not a trained pianist herself, learned to play excerpts of classical music especially for The Zookeeper’s Wife. It was my mother’s idea to choose the Offenbach operetta excerpt as the warning that everyone who lived there had to get to their designated hiding places.” As heard in The Zookeeper’s Wife, that excerpt is “Pars pour la Crête (La belle Hélène)”. “The piano held a special importance in the house during the occupation because it was used to play an alarm signal. She was a classically trained pianist, and I wanted to convey how she was keeping that as a beacon for people, the pride and the culture.”Īntonina and Jan’s daughter Teresa Żabińska remembers, “Several of our guests played as well, when concerts were held in the evenings. “I was fascinated at how the healing that she tried to provide for the guests included a strong musical component. ![]() I also responded to the character trait in the script of how she read energy in people and also in animals. I wanted to portray Antonina because I love the compassion she exemplified and the heroism in that compassion. She says, “Here was an incredible arc for an actress to play. She amassed her own research on the period and the character, and visited the Warsaw Zoo – which reopened a few years after the war ended – to get a sense of the environment. To that end, she became an executive producer on The Zookeeper’s Wife. Chastain committed to the project, and would remain so through the several years that it took to roll the cameras. She was sent the script and then met with Caro. ![]() Jessica Chastainwas at the top of everyone’s list. To play the lead role of Antonina Żabińska, the filmmakers needed an actress who would not flinch from the range of emotions required to honor the subject. Jessica Chastain: Star and Executive Producer Somehow you have to express it in a way that people can handle. ![]() We researched documentary evidence on the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto the children, the starvation, the poverty, the sickness, the overcrowding. “What we always came back to was the truth of the Holocaust, and how it was impacting the world and in particular this community. It meant we shot through iron bars a lot, which is more difficult than I ever imagined… Focus Features released The Zookeeper’s Wife in April of 2017.ĭirector Niki Caro explains they key to her conception: “At the script stage, I was always thinking about the tension of being caged – whether as an animal or human – and the visual storytelling was colored by that. ![]()
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