Jessica Chastain opened up in a recent interview with Glamour about why she feels so strongly about bullying and body-shaming.

The red-headed beauty, who is all the rage in Hollywood right now, wasn’t always super popular.

Jessica Chastain said of her childhood,

“I remember being 8 years old. I was a late bloomer. I had very, very short red hair. Very freckly. And thank God there wasn’t the Internet, because I was told every day at school that I was ugly. And that no one wanted to be my friend. The most cruel things.”

Chastain continued, “And now these girls or boys are having to deal with that in their school and on a world platform. If I can do anything to help young girls and to be a cheerleader for people who sometimes have low self-esteem, I want to do that.”

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Jessica Chastain says one of the biggest problems that kids deal with today is body-shaming and bullying on social media. With the mask of anonymity offered by the internet, kids can be so incredibly cruel to each other.

“Oh God, it’s the worst. Enough with the body-shaming! What is going on in this world?” she said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBLPrBX-iCw

Jessica Chastain is also very supportive of her female colleagues in Hollywood. In fact, she would like to see more of them around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pVZ8KD6CYU

“I’m really, really supportive of women in Hollywood. I love Meryl Streep. She’s such an incredible actress. But I feel like she’s the only one in her age group who gets those parts,” Jessica Chastain says.

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She continued, “Why isn’t Viola Davis a lead in a film? She’s one of the greatest actresses alive. And where are the Asian actors and actresses? I’m not saying, ‘We don’t want movies about men.’ I’m just saying, ‘Come on, all the men I know love women. So let’s also have some stories about these women. Let’s write something for them, guys—and let’s make room for women writers, too.'”

Hopefully Jessica Chastain can raise her voice for kids with low self-esteem and women and inspire them to not be discouraged in whatever they are doing in life.