Jessica Chastain Made Sure She & Her '355' Co-Stars Are Owners Of The Film & Will Get A Portion of Movie's Profits

Jessica Chastain is opening up about how she’s more than just an actress in her upcoming movie, The 355.

The 43-year-old actress and her co-stars – including Lupita Nyong’o, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Marion Cotillard, and Fan Bingbing – will actually own the movie.

Jessica had a plan for the actors of the film to be paid equally and share in the film’s profits.

“A lot of times, our names are used to sell movies, and that’s how the money is raised for them,” Jessica explained to Shape magazine in her cover story. “So I thought, If our names are being sold, then we need to be the owners of the film.”

She continued, saying that she spoke to her co-stars and told them “if you do this movie, you’re going to have to agree to sell it, because you will be an owner. We’re going to sell the distribution rights to raise the budget for the film, and then everyone owns a portion of the box office.”

“I don’t know if anything like this has been done before, and honestly, I’m a bit shocked I got away with it,” Jessica shared. “But hopefully it creates a new model in which artists can own their work.”

This isn’t the first time Jessica has been an advocate for equal pay. It first came to light when she fought for Octavia Spencer to get five times the pay she signed on for in a movie they had done together.

“When it comes to fighting for pay equality, I would rather just do it and not talk about it. I think it’s actually more powerful if I don’t have to explain it,” she says.