Michael Shannon & Jessica Chastain Are ‘George & Tammy’ In New Showtime Mini-Series

The legendary George Jones and Tammy Wynette had distinctive vocal styles that set each of them apart from anyone else in country music. Both had their own iconic songs as solo artists. Jones best known for “He Stopped Living Her Today,” while Wynette’s signature song “Stand By Your Man.”

When they blended their voices, they became country music royalty with duets like “Golden Ring,” “Two Story House,” and “We’re Gonna Hold On.”

George & Tammy were a dynamic duo both onstage and off. They were married for six years, but stayed duet partners for much longer. They divorced, but ended up sharing a special bond that stretched far beyond their time together as a couple.

A new six-part mini-series, which debuts on “Showtime” and Paramount” Sunday night (December 4^th) aims to tell part that story.

Early this month in Nashville, Actors Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain sat down to talk about portraying the country music power couple.

“They were both fascinating people in their own regard,” Shannon said, “but the thing I find the most compelling is the way they influenced each other when they were together.”

George & Tammy is based, in part, on a book written by the couple’s daughter, Georgette Jones. The mini-series follows their complicated, often rollercoaster-like relationship. Jones struggled with alcohol abuse while Wynette had challenges of her own.

Shannon and Chastain read biographies and autobiographies, studied videos, listened to music, and spent time with people who knew and loved the couple, to prepare for their roles. Chastain, who first signed onto the project in 2011 when it was initially slated as a movie, explained why she was drawn to playing the multi-layered Tammy Wynette.

“To me she was like, I don’t know how to describe it, she felt like this feral animal that was trying not to let people know that’s what she was. And I think you can hear it in her voice. At the end of “Stand By Your Man,” she hits that note and I can feel it in my skin, what she’s so desperately trying to hide. I loved that about her, the kind of, what’s happening underneath what you’re showing to the world.”

Chastain went on to detail more of what she meant, noting how the kind of songs Wynette sang didn’t always reflect the way she lived.

“She sang ‘Stand By Your Man,’ but she married five times,” Chastain said. And I found her to be a rebellious heart, an open heart, who dove head-first into her life.”

She also found Wynette to be stronger and more determined than some people might have realized.

“Some of the things that really struck me, this was in her early life, when she was married to Euple Byrd and she tried to leave her marriage, and her mom taking her kids and her going to a hospital. And then her showing up in Nashville. I just found her to be courageous in a way people don’t talk about sometimes with women.”

Chastain and Shannon admit it was a bit intimidating to step in and “sing” as George and Tammy. They spent months working with Nashville vocal coach, Ron Browning, but both also came into the roles with some music history. Chastain won an Academy Award for playing, and singing as, Tammy Faye Bakker in the 2021 film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Shannon is a longtime musician with his own band. He said he enjoyed immersing himself in the role of George Jones.

“I felt he was a little bit of a kindred spirit, you know? I could understand his ambivalence about his success and his relationship to the audience and the business of what he was doing. And his desire to want to be a better person than he was, and not ever really kind of understanding how to go about that.”

Shannon then added, “I was just very moved by his love for Tammy and the story of them together.”

After they divorced, Jones and Wynette continued to record together, and still maintained a strong connection, something Chastain is still intrigued by.

“I loved the songs to begin with,” Chastain said, “but now I am obsessed. When I watch them on YouTube singing these songs and thinking, okay, what point of their lives are the in, and what point of their relationship are they in? They’re married to other people right now, why are they kissing on stage?”

She said there was something special about how much they cared for each other.

“I mean the way George wrote letters to radio disc jockeys after her death asking for people to investigate the circumstances because he was upset by what happened. And they’d been separated for a long time at that point. They really had this connection that no matter how strongly they tried to disconnect, and they did try to disconnect, it was an impossible thing. I think there are people you meet in your life, and you can’t describe it, but you know it’s life changing. And I think that’s what they were for each other.”

Shannon feels the same way.

“There are so many different versions of the story and we’re not saying this is the absolute God’s honest truth, but it’s what moved us and what we felt was important to share with other people. If you’re going to make a series like this, you might as well make it about the love between them, whether or not people speculate about what that is, or were they the love of each other’s lives? We chose to think they were.”

The premiere episode airs Sunday, December 4th at 9pm ET/PT simultaneously on SHOWTIME and on the Paramount Network behind Yellowstone. The rest of the season it will be available exclusively on SHOWTIME.