Jamie Lee Curtis may have grown up the child of Hollywood royalty, but she says she’s forged her career with a different mindset.
The daughter of screen legends Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Jamie Lee Curtis was just 19 when she made her big-screen debut in John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic “Halloween.” Curtis went on to show off her comedy chops in a starring role on the ABC sitcom “Anything But Love” and in box office hits including “Trading Places” (1983), “A Fish Called Wanda” (1988) and “Freaky Friday” (2003).
Now, nearly five decades into her career, Curtis, who turned 67 in November, is hotter ever. She won her first Academy Award in 2023 for her role as a dour IRS auditor in the surreal comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and then scored an Emmy the following year for a dramatic guest-starring role on “The Bear.”
“Nothing I have done actively has generated the amount of work I’m doing now. There is no formula for this,” Curtis told TODAY’s Willie Geist in the Dec. 7 edition of Sunday Sitdown.
“I was lucky because my vanity was not my meal ticket,” she continued, noting her parents’ fame in the 1950s and ’60s was hinged on their good looks.
“My parents were both known first and foremost for being beautiful. And talented,” said Curtis. “Neither one of them wanted to acknowledge the deep, dark, truthful mirror of aging and so they both tried to fend it off.”
Curtis, on the other hand, “embraced (aging) fully,” she said, laughing.
“And I think that may be the secret key is I don’t give a s—,” she added.
Curtis’ eagerness to stretch herself onscreen makes her a favorite of some of Hollywood’s most successful directors. This month, she appears among an all-star ensemble in James L. Brooks’ political dramedy “Ella McCay,” opening Dec. 12.
The movie, which also stars Emma Mackey, Ayo Edebiri, Kumail Nanjiani, Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson, is about an “idealistic young politician” (Mackey) who, Curtis said, wants to “do good in the world.”
Curtis plays the title character’s aunt, who steps in to support her after her mother dies.
Referencing her own life, Curtis shared one person in particular who offered her a similar level of encouragement.
She recalled being “cute” as a child and having “a lot of energy.” She also believed she struggled with an undiagnosed “learning issue.”
“There was a friend of my mother’s who was a novelist,” she said. “She was the only person in my life who ever looked at me and said, ‘I see you, Jamie. You’re very smart.’ That gave me some glimmer of like, ‘Really? Huh.’ And it has stayed with me.”
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