Jessica Chastain dropped out of high school, family didn't notice

says no one in her family noticed when she didn’t graduate high school.

The 45-year-old actress was raised by her grandmother Marilyn and her very young mother Jerri, and she revealed that the drug addiction issues of her younger sister – who died by suicide in 2003 when Jessica was in her twenties – took up most of the attention in their household.

So Jessica dropping out of El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento,  went unnoticed.

‘I dropped out of high school. In my family, no one stopped me, no one was like, you can’t be an actor. But I’m sure they’d rather I’d fallen in love with being a dentist,’ She told .

‘But my sister was having a lot of difficulties, and everyone was very stressed. So the focus was on that. When I didn’t graduate, no one even noticed,’ she said.

‘Yeah. It wasn’t even a conversation of, “Uh, are we going to your graduation?” Nothing,’ she added.

But she did continue her education.

After dropping out of high school she gained an adult diploma then enrolled in Sacramento City College from 1996 until 1997. In 1998 she attended the American Academy Of Dramatic Arts and in 2003 she graduated from Juilliard School in New York City.

She is the daughter of mom Jerri Renee and dad Michael Monasterio – they were teenagers when the actress was born. The marriage didn’t last and Jessica has said she was closer to her stepfather Michael Hastey. 

Jessica – who has two children with her husband “http://artmlm.ru Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo – also revealed she believes it is important for women to be able to choose if they want to have children or not.

She explained: ‘The problem is that my mom, my grandmother and all the women in my family were pregnant when they were 17, because they were never given that choice. Birth control is expensive. 

‘And they couldn’t rely on men to do their part, to be responsible. So it’s very important to me that women have access to contraceptives and freedom over that.

‘Because I know a lot of people are freaked out when women decide not to have children. But I think that’s great!’

Jessica’s mother later had two more children with Jessica’s stepfather and she said: ‘There’s almost 20 years between me and my youngest sibling.’

In January she opened up about her upbringing in a poverty-stricken home with a single mother who struggled to feed her five kids – admitting that she ‘grew up with a lot of resentment’ because of their difficult circumstances.

The actress shared details about her childhood in the interview, in which she admitted that many people ‘expect’ her to have been brought up in the same privileged position that she now holds. 

She told : ‘I don’t talk about it much, but it was really, um, it was not what you would expect. When people see me, I think they expect a different background than I have.’ 

She added: ‘I grew up with a lot of resentment, because we didn’t have things, like even food.’ 

But while Chastain – who earns multi-million dollar paychecks for her movie roles – now enjoys a life of wealth and fame, she says that she still gets ‘angry’ thinking about the fact that there are still people struggling to make ends meet, just as she did during her childhood. 

‘So because I come from that place, I know what it’s like,’ she explained. ‘And it makes me angry. And I don’t [want] anyone else to be denied anything. In terms of a voice, being seen, being acknowledged and valued.’ 

Chastain also said she received support throughout her childhood.

She attended a local performing arts school in California – something she was only able to do with the help of people ‘who saw she was struggling’. 

According to the actress her family was unable to afford the tuition for the school, however staff allowed her to work there so that she could pay her way. 

‘There were people that saw I was struggling as a kid and they helped me,’ she said. ‘And that’s why I ended up where I am now.’

Following her stint at the local arts school, Chastain – whose mother gave birth to her when she was just 16 – went on to land a spot at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City, which she was able to pay for with the help of scholarship, which was funded by the late actor Robin Williams. 

The Sacramento native went on to reveal that she is the first person in her family ‘not be pregnant when she was 17’, claiming it ‘gave her a choice’ that those before her didn’t have. 

In November 2017, she revealed to the Evening Standard that her mother used to ‘steal food’ at a local store because she didn’t have enough money to feed her kids. 

‘We stole food at the store because we didn’t have any money,’ the actress shared. ‘And some people knew she was doing it but didn’t stop her. So there is kindness everywhere. We’re okay now because people were protecting her.’

In her latest interview, mother-of-two Chastain, who welcomed her first child aged 41, also questioned why there aren’t set ups on film shoots where people can bring their little ones – adding that she admired Chris Hemsworth for missing his kids while filming The Huntsman. 

She said: ‘Right now, as a society, I don’t believe we value fathers as much as we should. I think we have to understand that — and this is tough as a woman to say this — the father relationship is just as important as the mother relationship.’