 The year 2015 saw Chastain take on the part of a commander in Ridley Scott's science fiction film The Martian. Starring Matt Damon as a botanist who is stranded on Mars, the film was based on Andy Weir's novel of the same name. Chastain met with astronauts at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Johnson Space Center, and based her role on Tracy Caldwell Dyson. She spent time with Dyson in Houston and said, "My character is dealing with the guilt of leaving a crew member behind, but she's still responsible for the lives of five other crew mates. I tried to play her as Tracy would have been in those moments." With a revenue of over $ 630 million, the film became her second top-grossing film in two years. Also in 2015, Chastain played a villainous countess who plots with her brother (played by Tom Hiddleston) to terrorize his new bride (played by Mia Wasikowska) in Guillermo del Toro's gothic romance Crimson Peak. Despite the character's misdeeds, Chastain approached the part with empathy, and in preparation read graveyard poetry and watched the films Rebecca (1940) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Toro cast her in the film to lend accessibility to a part he considered "psychopathic", but critic Peter Debruge of Variety found her to "alarmingly miscast" in the role, writing that she "flounders to convey [her character's] vicious insecurity and black-widow ruthlessness". Conversely, David Sims of Slate magazine praised her for portraying her character's "jealous intensity to the hilt".
