This Christmas, Jessica Chastain and her husband, Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, decided to get their families together in the Alps in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy. And it was really, really awkward.
During a Wednesday, January 3, appearance on Jimmy Kimmel, the Oscar-winning actress explained that her parents are from California. His are from Veneto, Italy. “My family doesn’t speak Italian and his family speaks very little English,” she explained. “It was a very quiet holiday, but there was a lot of pointing and a lot of food.”
The language barrier wasn’t the only issue. “Americans eat in about an hour,” explained the 40-year-old. “A meal starts and then it’s done. When I went to Italy, I didn’t realize that meals last for three or four hours . . . I don’t understand this but Sunday brunch will go from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.. You eat one course and it’s delicious. Then the second your plate is done, his mom is putting more food on my plate. So I have a trick where I just push the food around on my plate for hours.”
Then there’s Chastain’s diet: She’s vegan — which is something her mother-in-law doesn’t quite understand. “I would say, ‘I’m sorry I can’t eat that,’ and she would say, ‘No problem, we have fish.”
Asked by Kimmel “Do you think they hate you?” Chastain replied, “Maybe that’s why it’s so quiet. They just hate me!”
