Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon (‘George and Tammy’) spill secrets on how to ‘act drunk’ [Complete Interview Transcript]

During a recent Gold Derby video interview, managing editor Chris Beachum spoke in-depth with Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon (“George and Tammy”) about their Showtime limited series, which is eligible at the 2023 Emmys. Watch the full video above and read the complete interview transcript below.

Shannon stars as country singer-songwriter George Jones in the true-life miniseries, who was often drunk in his personal life and even on stage. The actor revealed to us his secrets for acting drunk, noting, “Try and act like you’re not drunk is the best way to try and act drunk … I feel like the best strategy is just not to get too anxious about it.”

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As for her character, rising entertainer Tammy Wynette, Chastain proclaimed, “When they were on stage together, even when he was drunk or whatever, there was something about George that reminded her that she was alive. And I think that’s when she made her best art music.”

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Chris Beachum: Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain, star in George and Tammy on Showtime, which is just about to premiere. Michael, I want to start with you. George Jones was already very famous, as this project opens up, when he first meets Tammy.

Michael Shannon: Yeah.

CB: What did you know about him before you started the project?

MS: I didn’t know all that much, really. I just remembered seeing him when I was a kid on television sometimes, but I hadn’t read his book or anything, so I had to do, I had a lot of research to do, but I got right into it. Read his book and read Tammy’s book and Georgette’s book and a whole bunch of books and articles and interviews and everything I could get my hands on.

CB: What about you with Tammy? You start, we see her right at the beginning of when she’s hoping to be a star, and then we see her over the whole progression of the rest of her life. What did you know about her as you got started?

Jessica Chastain: I mean, I attached to this project in 2011, and the only thing I really knew about her was Stand By Your Man, is that she was famous for singing that song, and I knew the controversy with Hillary Clinton bringing it up, and was it pro-women, was it anti-women, that’s kind of only thing I really knew about Tammy. And so I had about a decade to research everything I could, and what I really loved about our series is when we meet her, yes, she isn’t the superstar that she became, but she had already charted in Nashville multiple times. She had the hit, Apartment Number Nine. She was successful in her own right before she fell for George Jones, and which was a huge feat for a woman who came to Nashville with three kids, single mom, determined to make something of her life and for her children.

CB: I want to ask you a question I’ve asked some other people over the years, George Jones notoriously would get drunk all the time. As an actor, what is the secret to making that look good on screen and not be a performance?

MS: Oh, dear. The secret to-

CB: While you think about it. I’ll tell you one answer I got one time. One of the best people I’ve ever seen do that, I asked him about this was Bob Newhart, believe it or not, the comedian, but he could play drunk really well on stage, on his phone acts or on his TV show. I asked him one time, he said, you know what? It’s all about the drunk. Even the drunk doesn’t know they’re drunk or they’re trying to overcome it so much to other people that they don’t seem drunk, right? And I thought that was a good answer. But anyway, what was your answer?

MS: Yeah, but I’ve heard people say that before actually, is to try and act like you’re not drunk is the best way to try and act drunk. I don’t know, I guess, I know a lot of people get nervous about it or self-conscious about it, but I don’t ever really think about it all that much, I feel like the best strategy is just not to get too anxious about it because I think if you get real anxious about something, then you’re going to get self-conscious about it.

CB: On Tammy’s side of things, having to put up with that from a boyfriend and then a husband. How was that for you on playing that aspect of it, always not knowing what was going to be around the corner with him?

JC: Well, in some sense it’s kind of our job as an actor. I mean, my favorite thing about what we do is really not knowing what’s going to be around the corner. We have the structure of the script and this sense of, this is where it’s going to lead, but when you’re working with people who are really in the moment, you kind of allow yourself to go on a journey that you might not have anticipated. And that’s definitely true, though. That was true on this project for me, I really liked what Abe wrote, where she really comments about things like, if a girl singer got up to the stuff you boys do, we’d be run out of Nashville so fast. Things like that. So it was interesting that to play Tammy as she comes to terms with these men in her life, their quote unquote “bad behavior” and always comparing herself to it, I think she felt like a little resent, I mean, I know, I imagine she felt very resentful of it because there’s a freedom to it as well. I mean, you look at her early performances and she’s so scared and almost paralyzed and frozen because she’s so determined to get it right. She’s so afraid of making a mistake and that if she makes a mistake, then she’ll be judged unfairly and then not be able to sing anymore. And so there was something about George and I know how as wild as he was and how frustrating that it was, it also was in some sense, it freed her up because when they were on stage together, even when he was drunk or whatever, there was something about George that reminded her that she was alive. And I think that’s when she made her best art music.

CB: You mentioned being, her nervous on performing, and I remember this scene, she’s already a superstar, already had a ton of hits it’s that first Las Vegas performance where he’s stuck in jail and she doesn’t know where he is. And she’s still extremely nervous because she doesn’t want to go out there by herself. And as she said after the fact of, yeah, they love me, but they love me because of him.

JC: I sing about him. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was very difficult for women. I mean, I know it was very difficult for women in that time. Still, women in Nashville do not have an easy go of it. I was just at the CMAs and talking to a lot of singers about this. There is a double standard, and Tammy married five times, and yet she sang, Stand By Your Man and Run Woman Run, go back to him and fix things up. She has all these songs about just staying put and being a good wife. And so I think she always thought about that and juggled those two perceptions of who she was.

CB: Michael, I want you both to talk about this, but I’ll start with you. On the performing of the songs, one thing so creative about the way, from a direction standpoint, writing standpoint and performance is they’re not all, every song we hear and see is not always on stage. Sometimes it’s the two of you sitting on a couch seeing the lyrics for the first time, and then maybe blending into you doing it on stage or all kinds of variations of that. Can you just talk about getting ready to actually performing songs?

MS: Well, yeah, that was a long process. We did a lot of training with a vocal coach from Nashville named Ron Browning, and he came to New York City and we would go see him Monday through Friday all day. We each had a solo lesson and then we’d do our duets together. And that went on for a couple of months. We had actually started training with him on Zoom before that, but it was, I felt like it got real when we were all in the room together. And then we went to Nashville and started to lay down some tracks, record some tracks before we even started shooting the show. And then we started shooting and eventually after enough practice and feeling slightly comfortable with the whole scenario, we started shooting in the set known as the Quonset Hut, which is a studio where they recorded a lot of their songs. And we actually had real studio musicians from Nashville in there playing the session guys. And one day I finally got my druthers up to just grab a guitar and just start playing and singing with them. And they actually rolled on it. And that’s how we got Beneath Still Waters, because that was kind of a impromptu thing, really, wasn’t it?

JC: Yeah. I mean, the mics were always open to record. We sang live all the time in front of extras and stuff. But the great thing about having the musicians is we could just play.

MS: Yeah, we could just, yeah.

CB: Was there one for you, Jessica, a particular song that you were most excited to do?

JC: I was not excited to do any of them. I had the most, actually, if I was going to have fun, it was always the duets, because that to me felt like I could get out of my own anxiety, and which I think was probably very similar to Tammy, and just focus on the harmonies and looking in my sight and be like, okay, we got this. The one that was the most, of course, anxiety inducing was Stand By Your Man for a multitude of reasons. And I was very nervous to go to the CMAs last week because I was scared. The trailer had just been released, and that song is in the trailer. And it was just the whole time, it was very, very stressful. And everyone was so kind to us, which of course, I think everyone understands the feat and the impossible feat that Mike and I both tried to do. But singing Stand By Your Man. I mean, it’s in front of, one the Vegas ones in front of hundreds of extras, and I have an earwig in my ear with the music, and the microphones are live. So in order to get the vocal clean, the audience doesn’t hear the music. They just hear my vocal. And so you feel very exposed. I mean, belting the end of that song with no buffer of music surrounding you, it was really scary. And yeah, I drank a lot during that time, because I had to figure out how am I going to get through this intact? And bourbon was a big help.

CB: You mentioned double standards earlier. One thing, I followed country music, being from the south, my whole life and my parents, they’ve gone to all the shows and know all the people. So they were thrilled that this was coming up on Showtime in a couple of weeks. But I always hated the fact that it took forever to get Tammy Wynette in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

JC: Oh, I know.

CB: She was as big a superstar as a Loretta Lynn or a Dolly Parton or any of the other women, and even most of the other men. And yet it took her a long time to get in.

JC: First Lady.

CB: And George got in basically as soon as he was eligible.

MS: Right?

JC: Yeah. She’s the first lady to sell a million records. First Lady, that’s what they call her, the First Lady of Country Music. And still, I think there’s a sexism of her being married so much, they talk about her in relationship to Loretta Lynn. And Loretta had the one relationship throughout her life. And there was something about, she was a good wife, right? She’s sang about birth control, she sang about, don’t come home drinking with loving on your mind. I mean, she really was very progressive and the things she sang about and lived a very kind of conservative life. And Tammy was the opposite. She sang about very conservative ideas of what a woman has to be and was more free in her life. And I think probably because she didn’t play into the game of what a woman was supposed to be, perhaps that she came up against the sexism of that in the industry.

CB: Yeah, I wondered about that. And maybe, I mean, we talked about earlier the industry loved George so much that because they’d split, maybe they held that against her, it was an old boys club even more back then than even now.

MS: Well, you also have to consider the way Tammy died and the circumstances around that and the George Richey of it all. And it was a dark ending to her life, you know? It was not like, there was probably kind of something spooky about it that people wanted to stay away from or something.

JC: But I still talk, I, listening to stuff, there’s still, I get very protective of her. And it’s almost like there are some people out there who blame Tammy for the things that George did. I mean, it still happens nowadays in our society where women are constantly blamed for the things men have done or choices men have made. And for sure, I believe, and she still, in some parts of the country music scene, I think is blamed for the actions of George.

CB: She just wasn’t as respected during her life as she was after her life. And I don’t like that.

JC: Hopefully more so hopefully people will see our series and understand where she was coming from and actually what she overcame, because I didn’t know. And when I started reading about her and the things that she did and accomplished, I find her to be an incredible human being.

CB: I want to ask a couple of awards questions, because we’re on awards website. You’re the reigning Best Actress champion at the Oscars. When did that really sink in for sure, and what was a favorite memory of that experience?

JC: Well, we were shooting this when that was happening, so it was incredibly stressful because we would have music rehearsals, we’d shoot all during the week, and then we’d have music rehearsals on Saturday. And then Saturday night I would fly to Los Angeles and then be there Sunday and then after an award ceremony, fly back to shoot again. Like, shoot, Stand By Your Man or whatnot. I mean, I missed the Critics’ Choice because we were filming in Wilmington and I just couldn’t get out there. So it was really, it felt just unmanageable at times, but maybe it was good because it took my head out of it. It got to the point where I was like, okay, I didn’t do as much as probably was requested of me to do during the award season because I was so focused on this. And I think probably that kept me sane.

CB: I remember that with Brie Larson too, that year she had Room, but she was in New Zealand shooting. She was coming in every weekend and then going back to New Zealand during the week.
JC: Oh, wow.

CB: Michael, since you were working together at that time, what did you think about Jessica winning the Oscar?

MS: Oh my God, I was so proud. I was so happy for her. I really think it was a phenomenal performance she gave in that movie. And yeah, I mean, I’ve known Jessica a long time because we did Take Shelter together, right? And I loved her speech, and I loved seeing her up there. And yeah, I was real happy, real happy for her.

CB: Last question for both of you. I’ll start with you Michael, you’ve had two Oscar nominations going back over a decade, and I’ve asked this to so many awards type people before, nominees and winners. Yeah. So this will be for you too, if you want to be thinking about your answer, your first big award show that you went to, maybe a memory from that or something you would like to tell us about that.

MS: Oh dear. Well, it depends, I guess, on how you define big. I mean, because started out doing theater in Chicago, and we have these awards in Chicago called the Joseph Jefferson Awards, and they’re kind of our Tony Awards in the Windy City there. And they have them for the union shows and for non-union, equity and non-equity. So, the non-equity ones are called Citations. And yeah, I got one of those when I was still a teenager, actually. And that was pretty incredible. I went to get that, oh geez, 18 I think when I got that.

CB: Well, that was a big award show.

MS: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that was my first one.

CB: Jessica, what about you?

JC: Well, for, do you mean televised or?

CB: However, you want to take it?

JC: I mean, definitely. I remember it was a big incident in some similar way, Mike, there was a, I’m trying to think it was like Sacramento, there was like a, it sounds so silly, but I was very young and we did this state competition and I did this monologue and there was an award ceremony. No one really knew what was going on, and I won it. I still have the little trophy. And I just remember because no one, my mom, I was dropped off and no one knew when to pick me up or whatever. And I just remember sitting on the grass afterwards holding my trophy and thinking, because there were hundreds of people all throughout the state that were participating in it. And it was the first time I was like, maybe I can really do this. So for me, it was monumental in that it provided me with kind of a look towards what my life was hopefully going to become.

CB: You didn’t have any trouble getting picked up after the Oscars this year?

JC: No, we had a party van.

CB: You were sitting on the ground with the Oscar waiting, waiting on your driver.

JC: No, at the airport though. We were at the airport.

MS: Oh, that’s right, you showed us the Oscar at the airport. We were in Wilmington, North Carolina shooting George and Tammy, and yeah, you had come to work. We were taking a trip back to New York where we lived for the weekend to see our families and whatnot. And yeah, you pulled it out.

JC: Yeah.

MS: It was pretty neat.

CB: Well, it’s so exciting to have George and Tammy being celebrated again after all these years, and I hope everybody watches it on Showtime. Thank you so much.

MS: Thanks for having us.

JC: Thank you, nice to talk with you.

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