Just months after winning the Oscar for playing Tammy Faye Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Jessica Chastain is taking on the role of another iconic Tammy — Tammy Wynette — in the new limited series George & Tammy, which centers on Wynette and George Jones' tumultuous six year marriage and lifelong friendship. Chastain, who brilliantly portrays the triumphs and tragedies of the First Lady of Country Music, has been attached to the project for years (she signed on in 2011 when it was conceived as a film by series creator Abe Sylvia) and has spent much of that time researching Wynette — and putting aside previous misconceptions about the country legend.
Chastain, who produced the series through her production company, Freckle Films, said those misconceptions of Wynette stemmed from her 1968 hit "Stand By Your Man" and remarks made by another First Lady — Hillary Clinton. The song turned up in the 1992 presidential campaign when, during a 60 Minutes interview with Bill and Hillary Clinton, following allegations of the presidential candidate's infidelities, Hillary Clinton alluded to Wynette and her signature song.
"I'm not sitting here like some little woman standing by my man, like Tammy Wynette," Hillary Clinton said during the infamous interview. "I'm sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honor what he's been through and what we've been through together. And you know, if that's not enough for people, then heck — don't vote for him."
Hillary Clinton's comment, for which she later apologized to Wynette, was the latest in a long line of digs against the tune. Chastain says she realized that the response to the song had inadvertently shaped her view of Wynette.
"I realized I had come into the research with a little bit of judgment against her for that song, 'Stand by Your Man,'" Chastain tells Wide Open Country. "I know there was a lot of controversy about it; You know, Hillary Clinton saying the thing about Tammy Wynette standing by her man and a lot of women's lib groups being so against the song. The more research I did and read about Tammy saying 'Why are they bringing me into it? The song's not about being a doormat' — also, the fact that she was married five times — her life was so different than the songs she sang."
Dana Hawley/ Paramount
Wynette certainly grew tired of defending "Stand By Your Man," which she penned with Billy Sherrill (in 20 minutes, no less), though it remained a staple of her live shows. Wynette's friend and publicist, Evelyn Shriver, told NPR that the country icon felt it was unbelievable that "a song that took me 20 minutes to write, I've spent 20 or 30 years defending."
Yet she remained the song's most stalwart defender and never wavered in her message that the song, not unlike Hillary Clinton's emphatic support of her husband in that 60 Minutes interview, is about loving, respecting and honoring one's partner.
"I don't' see anything in that song that implies a woman is supposed to sit home and raise babies while a man goes out and raises hell," Wynette wrote her 1979 book Stand By Your Man — An Autobiography. "To me, it means: be supportive of your man; show him you love him and you're proud of him, and be willing to forgive him if he doesn't always live up to your image of what he should be."
In fact, the heart of "Stand By Your Man" can be summed up in the song's opening lyric: "Sometimes it's hard to be a woman." George & Tammy, which is based on Georgette Jones' book The Three of Us: Growing Up With Tammy and George, shows the heartbreaks and hardships of Tammy Wynette. (As Sherrill once said, "she lived every tear everybody ever heard her sing.") But it also depicts Wynette's strength and tenacity, especially at a time when "girl singers," as they were often called, were expected to be perfect.
Dana Hawley/ Paramount
"She showed up in Nashville, a divorced single mom with three kids on her hip, determined to be a success in an industry that really didn't allow room for girl singers on their own," Chastain says. "She forced them to really see her and contend with her. And that was really exciting to see — all the aspects of what she had to come up against. I know it's still difficult for women in Nashville, but it was especially so in the 1960s."
George & Tammy premieres on Dec. 4 at 9 p.m. ET/ 8 p.m. CT on Paramount and Showtime.
READ MORE: 'Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad': The Story Behind Tammy Wynette's Fiery Warning
