Jessica Chastain found wearing prosthetics in her new movie made her bring “more energy” to her performance.

The 44-year-old star admitted the wig, fake teeth and other physical changes she needed to play the lead role in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ made it “difficult” to connect with the audience - but they also had the benefit of making her work harder to avoid being “upstaged” by her own appearance.

She told Total Film magazine: "It’s very helpful because you look so much like the character.

"But it’s also difficult because you have to act through it, right? How are you going to reach people through all of that stuff? How are people going to see behind my eyes when my eyes are the only things exposed, you know?

“But I think it actually helped free me in a way. It made me aware that I needed to bring a lot more energy than I thought was humanly possible because I couldn’t walk into a room and then just get upstaged by the look.”

Jessica thinks her approach helped as it made her more like the real TV evangelist, Tammy Faye Bakker.

She added: “I had to be beyond it, which is what she was.

“Yeah everyone makes fun of her make-up and talks about how larger-than-life she was with her costumes, and her clothing, and her make-up.

“But her personality was much bigger than her make-up could ever be.”

Despite this, the prosthetics weren’t particularly comfortable for the movie star.

She shared: “The itching was the hardest.

“Sometimes you can get an itch underneath the make-up and it’s just terrible, because then you just start hitting yourself, trying to make it go away.”