Episode 1678 - Jamie Lee Curtis

Summary

Podcast Summary: WTF with Marc Maron – Episode 1678: Jamie Lee Curtis

Date: September 15, 2025
Guest: Jamie Lee Curtis
Host: Marc Maron

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Episode Overview

Marc Maron sits down with the iconic Jamie Lee Curtis for an emotionally candid and wide-ranging conversation. The two discuss Jamie's remarkable career trajectory—from Hollywood beginnings to creative renaissance, her approach to acting and producing, family history and trauma, recovery and sobriety, navigating the pitfalls of fame and the internet age, and her recent acclaimed work both in front of and behind the camera. The interview is rich with reflection, laughter, and vulnerable honesty, providing deep insight into the forces that have shaped Curtis’ life and artistry at 67.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Connection & Emotional Opener

• Jamie arrives 45 minutes early to Marc’s house, bearing meaningful gifts commemorating loss and connection (11:40). The rapport is immediate: “I really was not fortified. I didn't have my light emotional mesh armor on. And it got very connected very quickly...” – Marc (03:43).
• Jamie’s hand-in-hand foundation and philosophy of support in times of sorrow is introduced and revisited later as a recurring metaphor for community (74:08, 75:24).

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2. Creative Process & Acting Philosophy

On Live Performance & Memory

• Jamie recounts working with Richard Lewis on their sitcom, “Anything But Love”, contrasting her embrace of live audiences with his discomfort:

  "I became like a heroin addict for the audience...I literally felt more alive than I've ever felt in my life when I got that first laugh with a studio audience." – Jamie Lee Curtis (15:20)

• Lewis coped by hiding his script everywhere on set; Jamie is rigorous about fully internalizing monologues, not rehearsing with others (16:43–20:05).

Approach to Work & Directing

• Jamie prefers not to rehearse exhaustively:

  “I am loaded...I show up, I am fully loaded to go. Whatever it is, I will never not know a line. I am ready to go.” (27:36)

• She describes contrasts with directors—James L. Brooks loves long rehearsal (27:36–29:33), Jim Cameron is more visual and less performance-focused (30:25).

Method, Vulnerability, and Notes

• On trusting simple cues and direction:

  “I'm one of those people. I like somebody to whisper in my ear...I mean, I would even like if somebody just said a color to me.” (32:54, 33:34)

• Shares a memorable story about being told “purple” for a take on “The Bear”—using color as shorthand for emotional direction (35:16).

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3. Family History & Trauma

• Jamie opens up about growing up the daughter of Hollywood legends Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis:

  “I have zero memory of show business, really. I grew up on a dirt road...My parents were divorced. I was three.” (36:45)

• Trauma and emotional coping: She’s sensorial, with powerful olfactory and auditory memories, rather than clear events (37:40–41:08).
• Discusses her mother’s warmth and father’s inconsistency:

  “Tony was yummy...but yummy went away really early...Zero consistency for that yummy.” (42:46)

• Forgiveness and detachment from absent father Tony Curtis (42:04–42:18).

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4. Origin Story & Accidental Acting Career

• Jamie narrates her accidental entry into acting, from failing college student to contract player at Universal:

  “It was the last thing I thought I was gonna do. And now all of a sudden, I was paid $235 a week as an actor...” (51:48)

• The pivotal story: Getting fired from her first TV show led directly to her big break in “Halloween” (55:05–55:54).

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5. Sobriety, Addiction, & Recovery

• Jamie shares her journey with drugs and alcohol—dabbling early, developing a Vicodin addiction after surgery, and ultimately getting sober with help from Richard Lewis:

  “I would be dead [without getting sober before fentanyl]. There's no way to be here.” (69:32)

• The vital importance of community in recovery:

  “When you're in the dark of addiction and you think you're alone, and somebody reaches out their hand…that's how it feels.” (73:30)

• Marc and Jamie connect over decades of sobriety and “the hand in the dark” (73:20–73:46).

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6. Navigating Fame & the Internet

• Jamie’s firewall: never reading comments online, managing boundaries for mental health (62:46):

  “I put out into the Internet what I think and feel. But I decide. I say what I need to say and then I don't need to see what you think of what I said.” (63:20)

• Discuss cultural saturation, desensitization to violence and tragedy via overwhelming media images:

  “We don't know enough psychologically about what that does...that kind of. I don't ever want to see this footage of this man being shot.” (59:41, 60:05)

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7. Career Renaissance & Living Authentically

• Jamie discusses her late-career surge and comfort with her age and self. On “Everything Everywhere All At Once”:

  “What the best part of it is. It was pure...There wasn't a person involved in that movie that assumed anything other than it was kind of weird and cool.” (78:04, 79:18)

• Marc highlights how unusual it is to reach a new creative peak decades in—a fact Jamie finds both humbling and beautiful (65:29).
• Jamie on not cultivating a “saintly” public image, but just facing up to who she is now (80:53).

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8. Producing & “The Lost Bus”

• Jamie describes shifting into producing, her “idea girl” streak, and the path to getting “The Lost Bus” made—a film based on the Paradise, CA wildfire:

  “We bought the rights to the book…we had a writer who was going to adapt it…within a month, I had contacted [the real life heroes] and made an alliance.” (89:49–91:09)

• Emphasizes the importance of connecting with subjects, building trust, and honoring their real-life stories while accepting the necessity of fictionalization (95:09–99:01).
• The process included raising a memorial for the Paradise community—“Hope Plaza”—as part of the film’s commitment to legacy and healing (101:11).
• Praise for Paul Greengrass’ directing (“a master filmmaker...urgency and vibrance”) and Matthew McConaughey’s “stoicism and strength...deep humanity in a close up” (99:04, 92:44).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I came in early, brought you a gift, and we cried before the mics were even on." – Jamie Lee Curtis (opening, 11:55)
• “I just do. I don't say the words to another person...If I had to be looking for a line right now, I wouldn't be in it.” – Jamie Lee Curtis on acting process (26:47)
• “You have to be in it to live it.” – Jamie Lee Curtis (26:51)
• “Help is on the way. That's why when we first met in the hall of your house with your cats…I said to you, that's my hand in the dark, reaching out.” – Jamie Lee Curtis (73:08, 73:20)
• “My firewall is: Don't read comments. None.” – Jamie Lee Curtis (62:40)
• “There wasn't a person involved in that movie [Everything Everywhere All At Once] that assumed anything other than it was kind of weird and cool.” – Jamie Lee Curtis (79:18)
• “I credit Russell Goldman—turned down for what? They're geniuses.” – Jamie Lee Curtis, on taking the role in Everything Everywhere (80:18)
• “My instincts as an actor are my same instincts as a producer. I know a good story. I know what I can bring to it, and what I got to bring to it is the humanity.” – Jamie Lee Curtis (95:09)
• “And you know we both know too many people [impacted by fire]. So it is a—the tragedy, of course, is that here we made this movie a year ago...and in the middle of 2021...was Lahaina, where we watched an entire town burn.” – Jamie Lee Curtis (93:58)
• “We are sober and we are sober family.” – Jamie Lee Curtis, closing (103:53)

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Key Timestamps

• 11:40 – Jamie arrives early, bearing gifts and sparking emotional openness.
• 13:51–16:43 – Stories about working with Richard Lewis and memories of live TV.
• 27:36–35:16 – Jamie on preparation, rehearsal, and getting direction as an actor.
• 36:45–44:54 – Family history, parents, and the impact of trauma.
• 51:48 – Jamie becomes a contract player at Universal, narrates industry entry.
• 55:05–55:54 – Fired from first TV show, lands “Halloween.”
• 65:29, 78:04–79:18 – Jamie on her career renaissance and Everything Everywhere All At Once.
• 69:32–73:46 – Jamie’s addiction, the role of Richard Lewis, and the power of recovery communities.
• 89:49–99:01 – “The Lost Bus” production story, working with real-life counterparts, collaboration.
• 101:11 – Hope Plaza memorial and honoring fire survivors.
• 103:53 – Closing affirmations of sober family and gratitude.

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Tone & Style

The episode is emotionally direct, witty, and nuanced—alternating between laughter, plainspoken honesty, and moments of shared vulnerability. Both Marc and Jamie maintain their characteristic humor even in heavy moments, making the exploration of childhood wounds, addiction, fame, and creativity feel vividly relatable and real.

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For New Listeners

This conversation is a masterclass in show business resilience, the importance of creative authenticity, the necessity of support in recovery, and learning to embrace all stages of life with humor and courage. Whether you’re a fan of Jamie Lee Curtis, curious about Hollywood’s evolution, or seeking wisdom on healing and growth, this episode is a rich, rewarding listen.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

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Having anything and having to go up.

On stage with limited stuff and just kind of hammer that out. And it's easy to get. To get kind of to kind of buckle under that fear of not having anything.

And then all of a sudden, the.

Anger comes, the aggravation, the discomfort, the.

The just edginess.

And yet that usually is the fuel. That is usually the launching pad for me to think out loud, sometimes in an angry way. And then I got to temper it, got to hammer it out, not soften it, just give it some form and less angry.

But still, it's still got an edge to it.

So that's starting to happen, which is good, though I do. I don't know how propelled I am. I've been having a little. A little difficulty with propulsion lately. You know. Why? I don't know. It's like, what? Just so what? Just enjoy your life. He said to himself, out loud, to people listening. Enjoy it. I don't know, I just feel like, you know, all of a sudden I'm like, I don't want to go to the gym. I don't want to cook my dinner.

I don't want to try these jokes. I.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It.

[Marc Maron]

I don't want to.

I want a veg. I just want a veg. Aren't I entitled as an American to veg? To do a deep veg? Hey, if you have some kind of issue that needs attention in your life, is it better to address it before it becomes a problem or after the problem has already happened? Of course you want to deal with it before, which is why we recommend simply safe. Because it's designed to stop break ins on your property before they happen. You know from listening to this show that I can be a pretty anxious guy.

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What do you want?

Update on my cat problems. I'm just trying to accept what's happening. I've been in contact with Jackson Galaxy. We're texting. There's a plan in place.

I don't have a lot of faith in it.

Just want peace in my house. I'm not being. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm not a victim. I just don't deserve to be on edge all the time, worried about cats. I don't know how you guys do it with kids. At least you kind of know they're going to grow out of something. I think Charlie's emotionally Stunted. I think he's a perpetual kitten and he's too big and too strong to.

Be that right now.

We took him away from his mother while he was left under my doorstep, under the back stairs by a feral mother moving them around. He was only two, three weeks old. We had a bottle feed him and he doesn't know how to act around cats. So he never got. He never made that jump. He never made that jump emotionally from like mommy to like playing with cats, learning how to be a cat, and then, you know, to maybe a human home. He went right from mommy to human. And I think it stunted him. I think he's just locked in kitten mode. Sort of spoiled, self centered and emotionally stunted.

Sound like someone you know.

Hello, my name's Mark Maron, but I wasn't taken away from my mother. I probably would have been better off. I think that from what I understand about myself and some of the investigations I've done, is that because my mother and father saw me as just this appendage or something that they would worry about and panic about and use as an extension to them. I don't think I was ever given the opportunity to break away properly, to just sort of like let them work it out kind of thing that mom was always trying to troubleshoot and make it about her. So that's how I got emotionally stunted. And then, you know, junior high wasn't great, but is it for anybody? Summer's winding down, folks, and that means fall is almost here. And even if you don't live in a place where the leaves change and the weather gets cool, you can always get yourself in a fall mood with your food. Home Chef simplifies mealtime with fresh, easy to follow meal kits, offering healthy and enjoyable dishes delivered right to your doorstep, giving you less to worry about and more time to enjoy the change of seasons. Users of leading meal kits have rated Home Chef number one in quality, convenience, value, taste and recipe ease. Get some real autumn flavors in the next few weeks, like curried sweet potato and apple soup and chicken with shallot herb sauce and glazed pecan carrots. You get all that great food delivered right to you, and Home Chef customers save an average of $86 per month on groceries. For a limited time. Home chef is offering WTF listeners 50% off and free shipping for your first box, plus free dessert for life. Go to homechef.com WTF that's homechef.com WTF for 50% off your first box and free dessert for life. Homechef.com WTF? And you must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Okay, folks, Jamie Lee Curtis is here. She just produced this movie called the Lost Bus, which I thought was great. I think Matthew McConaughey, when he sets his mind to it, is. Is great America Ferrara is in it as well. And it's a true story, or it's based on a true story about the campfire that burned through this. The town of paradise up in Northern California. And it's.

It's.

I found it completely compelling, and it's just great to see great acting. And the guy who directed it, Paul Greengrass, did kind of an astounding job with it. And because I'm sort of studying a little harder now in preparation to possibly direct my first film, it was very kind of inspiring.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

I.

[Marc Maron]

It's.

It's a great movie. I just found it compelling as hell. The Lost Bus is in select theaters September 19th and streaming on Apple TV on October 3rd. Freakier Friday is also still in theaters. This is me hanging out with Jamie Lee Curtis.

The old house had all my books, tchotchkes. Like, it was like a movie museum of me and this place. You know, I didn't want, like, Richard Lewis. Richard, we're gonna. I'm just gonna cry the whole time. I already cried a little bit for Lynn, and he gave me the nice present.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm going to speak of him this afternoon at their. HBO is making a documentary about him.

[Marc Maron]

As time goes on, my love for Richard Lewis just grows. And, you know, we were.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He's my Eskimo, by the way.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, he is. He's a good one.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He's a good one.

[Marc Maron]

When you did the show with him, was he already sober?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, he was far from sober. Way far. Like, another continent from sober. He was out of his mind.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Out of his mind. On top of being out of his mind.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

On top of being out of his mind and terrified.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Because he, you know, he had never done something like that which required memorization, you know, when. If. I'm sure you would have that sheet.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Those yellow legal pad stuff with all the scrawl and everything.

[Marc Maron]

It was his first big acting gig.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It was his first regular. I don't know.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I actually don't know his biography so much, but it was his first regular acting gig, for.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Sure.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Sure.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And, you know, it requires memorization. It requires a lot.

[Marc Maron]

And he was freaking out the whole time.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He. Yes.

[Marc Maron]

I just, like, you know, out of. Out of all the comics in my. In. In, you know, as I grew up, you know, I always loved him, and I felt we had something similar. And as I got to know him, you know, as an older guy, like, we didn't hang out much, you know, but, you know, he liked me, and we talked. You know, his process is the most like mine and what we put at stake. What's at stake when we do comedy is the same because you're just moving through things.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And it's over repetition. You're not going up there with set jokes. You're, like, going up there like, all right, I got this, and I'm gonna go.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Right. And then I'm gonna take that and then go somewhere.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Y. Yeah, it was. I will tell you that I'm. How old am I. However old I am. 67 this year. 66. No, I'm 67 this year. I've only been in the movies, never done a play.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

The closest thing to live work I ever did was host Saturday Night Live twice, which was awful. I'm not a sketch comedian. It's like. It was just.

[Marc Maron]

Was it uncomfortable? Terrible.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It just wasn't. It's not my metier. It's not my. You know, I'm not. I'm comfortable sort of in life, but I. It's not what I do.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So they. It. There's nothing memorable about any of my appearances on snl, but Richard was only a live person. Right. And I. So when you're doing a TV series, you do it live in front of an audience. And I became like, a heroin addict for the audience. I came. I literally felt more alive than I've ever felt in my life when I got that first laugh with a studio audience.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And it just unleashed me and it freed me, and I loved it.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And Richard Lewis, who is, like, with a sheet of paper and some notes for an hour and a half or whatever, however long the set would be. Hated. Hated.

[Marc Maron]

Because it wasn't his words.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Wasn't his words. And his. He hated the idea that there were people watching. He wanted the audience gone. And I loved it. So it was like a perfect, weird combo platter. Like.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it's interesting. He probably didn't like the limitations of the jokes that he. You know, that he was confined by.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, for sure. And he didn't like our writers, and he early on wanted Larry David, and the head writer of our show didn't want Larry David for whatever reason.

[Marc Maron]

And he was drunk.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, no, I don't. I don't. I actually don't think he drank during.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

The work oh, good. Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I don't think he was drunk. He was petrified that he wouldn't remember. So I don't know if you know this, and I'm about to tell this to the HBO documentary that's gonna be made, but I'm happy to divulge it here with you, A friend of his, someone who loved him.

[Marc Maron]

Yes.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Richard Lewis taped every single line he had to say to every prop that there was in front of him. So if you ever see the show, he always carried around a clipboard. Well, the clipboard had every line he had to say on his desk. In front of every item would have been taped lines that he had. I had to tape lines on my body for him. If it was a. If we were doing a pickup and the closeup was on him over me.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Wow.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I think he was terrified to have to remember it in a very fixed, as you said, a very controlled fixed way, rather than his way.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

You know, I think that just terrified him.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's funny with the lines, you know, I mean, I don't know how you do it, you know, because I talk to actors and there are actors. Because I'm fairly new to it, and there are actors who were like, I read the script 100 times before I shoot a movie.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

That's not.

[Marc Maron]

Not gonna happen for me.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And. But I can remember lines, you know, scene per scene, you know, and know it. But I had this experience, you know, Danny Trejo.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Sure, of course. Sober.

[Marc Maron]

Very sober.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Super sober.

[Marc Maron]

Well, in my show, it's very funny. You know, I hired him to. He played a guy that I was sponsoring. He played a guy that just got out of the joint, and I was his sponsor. So that dynamic was not great for him.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

Because he's like. He's that guy.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Right.

[Marc Maron]

And he had a lot of lines.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He's way that guy.

[Marc Maron]

Way that guy.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

God bless him.

[Marc Maron]

And he had a lot of lines. And, you know, he wasn't feeling well that day. And we had to tape cue cards. We had a scene in a car.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, and the lines were. We had to tape them all over the place. And at some point, he goes, I.

Haven'T had this many lines in my entire career.

And he looks at me and goes.

They hire me for my face.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

That's fun. By the way, I think there are great actors who like to have cue cards. I think there are great actors who wear earwigs and have the dialogue fed to them so they can interpret it on their own, but I am. This is not me. Like, I'm not making it a pejor. Like, I don't care what anybody does, honestly. Sure. Of course. I don't care what your plan. I've recently heard that there's an act because of the Internet, which is, as you know, our favorite thing. There have been actors who've, I've recently seen, say they write their dialogue out, but only the first letter of the word, and that's how they remember. And I just do it, like, on my own. In repetition.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And. But I. But I. I just do. I don't say the words to another person. I don't work with a scene partner. I don't work with a coach. I don't work with somebody to feed me. I just. So, like, for instance, on there's the Bear.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

There was an entire episode that was just me and Abby.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's great. You did great on that show.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It's fantastic. But thank you. But the work, the words are so amazing. And Donna is in that episode, particularly, you know, Abby's giving birth, Sugar's giving or is in labor, and Donna just starts talking about all of the children's birth stories. So there are these beautiful monologues about memory of these experiences, and they. They aren't linear, and they kind of pop off all over the place. But it was so beautiful. And for me, learning them, it was. The writing was so great that you want. You don't want to miss a word because they're so powerful. And I've been lucky that the times I've had to memorize something in a big chunk has been great. Writing versus having to memorize something that's awful. And then I'm sure it would have been much more difficult.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it's strange because I'm a performer and a writer to a degree, and then when you have to do that work and you don't like the writing. Tricky.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Are you confrontational?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, please. Am I confrontational? Hardly. I'm like the.

[Marc Maron]

I'm a no team player.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, I'm. I'm. I'm head cheerleader. I'm. I'm. I'm not confrontational. In fact, I recently did a piece of work, and there was a moment where I felt someone was out of line with another person. And to this day, I'm still angry that I didn't step in and go, hey, hey, hey. What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Back it up a bit. Step away from the vehicle. What are you doing? I Am not confrontational on almost any level.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I think, well, with the acting, it seems that, like, if you have lines that you don't think are true to the character you're playing, it becomes really hard not to be like, what the fuck are you doing?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I one time had not done, you know, I'd done a few, obviously a few movies. And at one point, TNT was going to do Wendy Wasserstein's the Heidi Chronicles for television. And they asked me to play Heidi Holland. And I remember Wendy Wasserstein had to approve me. So we went to breakfast at a hotel where, you know, we talked for 20 minutes about whatever it was we talked about, was fairly quick to dive into whatever it was we were doing. And then I remember she looked across at me at one point and went, okay, okay. And I said, okay what? She goes, okay, you can do it.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I didn't realize that actually it was an audition.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But the reason I'm telling you it is in the middle of the Heidi Chronicles. Heidi Chronicles is about the women's movement in the 60s, and she's an art historian. And at one point, she's invited back to her girls school to give a keynote at a women's luncheon. A girls school luncheon. Women, where are we going? That's the title of her speech. And Heidi is so disgruntled and so confused by where we are as women. And this was when she wrote it.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And she goes on to talk about. It's sort of a rambling monologue where she talks about going to the gym. First of all, she talks about what you assume her life is like, which is like this sort of tiger mom whose daughter plays violin and, you know, who's gluten free and whose husband stups her on the kitchen table when the children have first gone. You know, like this fantasy of what women do.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

In today's world.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And then she talks about going to the gym and how all the women at the gym were just talking about a shoe, and these are the best shoes and this is the best pair of jeans and blah, blah, blah. And the. Just the sort of pre Instagram messaging of branding. Branding.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And how this one's cheating on that one's husband and this one moved this one out of the way for a job and how this one, you know, stole a job from another woman. And at the end of it, she gets very emotional and she says, I thought the point was we're in this together. I thought that was the point. She's really frustrated. The Reason I tell you this is I'm a movie actor. I'm offered to do this, what was a play. Joan Allen originated the part on Broadway, you know, and in the middle of this play is this, what, six minute monologue of this woman's free association about her day.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I decided I needed to know that monologue locked before I ever rehearsed one day of the. Of the TV movie. And so I learned it. And so the day of the table read, we were at the Wilshire E. Bell Theater. We were sitting around a table, we were reading this script. We all had our scripts. And then when it came to that speech, I closed my script. And I remember somebody looked at me like, what the fuck is she doing? And I gave the monologue. And for me, that is how I work. So that's why I told you that story was just simply, I need to know it in order to be able to live it if I'm looking for it. If I had to be looking for a line right now, I wouldn't be in it. In it. And being in it is my only gift. I don't have discernible gifts, but my gift is I need to be in.

[Marc Maron]

It with you here.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And if I'm looking for something or if I'm feeling like I'm not in it, then I'm terrible.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And that's, like, what's tricky about. I've noticed that, like, I had to do my first movie where I really had a lead. And there were definitely times where I was rationalizing that. Like, if I'm looking for it, it looks like I'm thinking of what to say.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, far right. Right, I understand. That's good.

[Marc Maron]

There's like an immediacy to it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I know.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I just worked with James L. Brooks on a movie that he wrote and directed.

[Marc Maron]

How is that?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, so the first day I met him, he asked me to play this part. It's a beautiful part in this movie. It's called Ella McKay. It comes out in December.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It's a family dysfunctional comedy dramedy. And, you know, it's James L. Brooks, and I go to his house and we sit in his living room. And I said, just so you know, I don't like to rehearse. I said, cause for me, I'm trained to basically be prepared for my work. So be it that I did horror movies or be it I did television, I am loaded. Like, I show up, I am fully loaded to go. Yeah, whatever it is, I will never not know a line. I Am ready to go. And he looked at me and he said, oh, I love rehearsal. It's the best part of the whole process. And I was like, oh, well, this is gonna be interesting. He said, why don't you like to rehearse? I said, because I feel like you're wasting. If something happens, it's movies, right? You've got a camera on you. Roll the fricking camera. Like let's go and let's rehearse on camera. Because what happens if something magical happens in the rehearsal?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And he said, but that's why you rehearse. It was. We had this wonderful thing and so the movie's finished. It was a beautiful experience. Challenging because of. He likes to do it a lot.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He likes to explore it a lot.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I'm not used to that. I'm used to exploring it twice.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah. Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And then moving on. And he said, so we were doing a thing with people who had seen the movie and I kind of brought that story up. They said, how was it working with Jim? I said, oh, that's amazing. I love him, by the way. I love him.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Like deeply.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But I said, but, you know, when I first met him, he and I kind of looked at each other and I said, I don't like to rehearse. And he said, well, all I do is like to rehearse. And Jim said, no, no, no, that's not what you said. You said, I don't like to be directed. And he. I don't think I said that, but I think that's what he was saying.

[Marc Maron]

That'S what he meant, which is you.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Just wanna do what you wanna do.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And up to this moment you've gotten away with it, but not with me. Cause I'm going to direct you. And it was that experience for me.

[Marc Maron]

Was it good?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Oh good, yeah.

Well, I mean, I've talked different.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I've talked to directors.

A lot of them think like you do. Like, you know, I hired the actor to do their job. I'm not there to train them.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, it's a different interpretation of the word direct. Jim Cameron did not direct the performance. He's so visual. I mean, you have to remember True Lies. He wrote it. It's frickin funny. There are jokes. The jokes land. He's like a comedy writer in secret. For a guy who has such respect for a more serious, more deeper, darker world vision, Big giant vision. He wrote some really funny jokes in true life and landed them not only in the writing, but in the Directing of it because you can screw up a joke if you don't shoot it properly and cut it properly and go to the reaction shot. You know, so he. I loved that about him. But, you know, there are people who don't interject that much. I'm somebody who likes, like, I want you to say, literally, faster, slower, colder, hotter. I even like a color. And here's an example which you will totally get. Maybe or maybe not. Maybe you will think I'm an asshole.

[Marc Maron]

I doubt it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

During the Bear, it was the Christmas episode. The Fishes episode. IO was shadowing Chris Storer because she knew she was gonna direct episodes in the next season. And that episode, she's not in it because it's a flashback to the family. And so she was on set shadowing Chris. And we were in a tiny house crowded with crew, crowded with a lot of actors, so there was virtually nowhere to go. And so I was sitting on the stairs, and I remember she came and sat next to me, and we had this lovely talk, you know, while they were setting up somewhere, doing something. And, you know, we were talking about process. And this was the Fishes episode. And by the way, I'm coming in blind. I don't know. One person.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, not one on the cast.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

You mean anybody.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I didn't know Chris Storr, the director. I had just met him the day I got there.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He. And I texted twice.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Seriously? Yeah, that was it. So you fly to Chicago, you're in a hotel by yourself, and then they pick you up and they bring you to set, and you're walking around going, hi, I'm Jamie. Hi, I'm Jamie. Hi. Hi, I'm Jamie. Hi, I'm Jamie. And then you do action. And then action. Sort of. And so she and I were sitting on the stairs, and I was saying about, like, process, and I said, you know, I'm one of those people. I like somebody to whisper in my ear. I don't like to be shouted at across the stage. I want you to come up and whisper in my ear a suggestion. I said, you know, pace it up. Slow it down.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Give it a little more heat. Give it a little thing. And I said. I mean, I would even like if somebody just said a color to me. Yeah, the one word, a color. And then I will interpret the note.

[Marc Maron]

That takes a poetic director to.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And so we do. So we shoot in the kitchen. That was pretty insane and beautiful. But again, fast.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah, fast.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Like, in about a half an hour, 40 minutes, we'd done that whole kitchen. I mean, it's all handheld.

[Marc Maron]

You like that, though?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I love. Are you kidding? I was unleashed. I loved it. But, I mean, it's. It's. But then, like, the next day, we did the dinner table because it was a set, because we had to drive.

[Marc Maron]

A car into it with Mulaney and Odenkirk and everybody.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And it's a big table.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

A lot of people.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, and Bernthal.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Oh, yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And, you know, they're gonna get a big fight, and then I'm gonna drive a car into the room. And so it was a separate day. It was a separate set. It was actually built on a soundstage because they had to. Because they had to. The car gag. And, you know, we did this big. You never know where the camera is because it's all handheld. We did that scene. I think we did it twice. It went as pitch, you know, and it's again, beautifully written. Painful, violent. And we did two takes of it, and then they had to reset because they had to fix all the broken plates. And at one point, I.O. came over and whispered in my ear. Purple.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

She said purple. And what she was saying is, you've done red and you've done orange. Give me purple. And what she was saying is, give me the wound. A purple is a bruise. It's not anger and it's not rage.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It's pain. That's the take they use. So for aspiring actors, for unaspiring actors, for old, tired, I'm done actors, it doesn't fucking matter. None of it matters. I don't give a shit if you write every line. I love actors who work with coaches, and they do deep, deep backgrounds. I don't care. I read the script once, I never read it again. I learn my lines, I show up and do the work. That's jlc.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So what's interesting is I have to assume that in your childhood, having grown up with two actors, you know, big actors, and growing up in a Hollywood that was so much different.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That your earlier memories of what the job was like has to be.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I have no memories.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

None.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

None. I have no memories. My childhood memories are smells and sounds. And I'm tactile. Like, I've already probably put my hands on you twice.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm a little handsy.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I have zero memory of show business, really. I grew up on a dirt road in Benedict Canyon in a house. My parents were divorced. I was three. I think if we ever visited, we were dressed up alike, me and my sister Kelly. And we made the obligatory half hour appearance on a set and people took pictures of my parents with us and then we were shuttled away. I have zero memory. There's no process, there's no reminiscence, there's no nostalgia. There's nothing.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Huh.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

My memories are the smell of eucalyptus.

[Marc Maron]

Trees in Benedict Canyon.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

In Benedict Canyon on a dirt road. The smell of chlorine in a pool because we had a pool and I loved to swim. I have a tactile memory of cold upholstery because I know I've in my dotage have kind of made this joke that like, I wish concerts were midday. Like I go shry about. Why can't Coldplay do a matinee?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Like start it at noon.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, why not? I would go so we could all enjoy it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So we could all enjoy it. Rather than start it at nine. By nine I'm asleep two hours, so. But my memory is, I think I was that way, Mark, since I was a little girl. Because my memory is falling asleep at restaurants and being carried to the car. And the memory I have is the feeling of the cold upholstery in the backseat of a car and me asleep.

[Marc Maron]

Do you think like it's like trauma?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Of course, yeah, of course, but trauma, like everybody has trauma.

[Marc Maron]

No, I know, but I mean, life is trauma. But at some point you wake up and have memories, don't you? No, the memories don't. Like, they don't start at like 10, nothing.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, yeah, but you know, I have very few memories of my youth. Very few. Very, very few.

[Marc Maron]

And I guess that's most people, if you really think about it. You have events maybe.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, I don't, I don't. I am a sensoral person, so I have bionic hearing.

[Marc Maron]

But were your parents cold?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I can tell you that my mom was a beautiful, charming, sweet woman who had a lot of joy, but also a lot of sadness. And I'm not gonna say cold. I mean, she just wasn't yummy. She wasn't sort of a yummy person. She was a lovely person and I had a beautiful life with her, don't get me wrong. And Tony, of course I didn't know because they divorced and he got, you know, Tony left Janet for a 17 year old girl. Yeah, I'm gonna dare say she was 16 when they met, 17 when they worked together. And he married her at 18. So Tony Curtis left Janet, who was in her 30s with two daughters, for a 17 year old girl.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And he married her and had children right away and had Another life. And so my youth, there was none of this conscious uncoupling.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It was war and awful and betrayal and public and hateful. Hateful between my parents. And, you know, again, when you talked about being confrontive, I was the ultimate good girl. I kept my mouth shut.

[Marc Maron]

You're gonna go one way or the other. Either you're gonna be fuck you or fuck me.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah. And it was the opposite.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah. But I am sensual. So I am. I'm telling you. I have, like acute hearing, like, too. It's.

[Marc Maron]

It's creepy, like to the point where it's annoying.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, it's crazy. I'll say. Oh, you know, a package just arrived. I'll say. What? Yeah, I'll say, oh, yeah. A truck dropped a package over the fence. How do you know? Oh, I heard it.

[Marc Maron]

Do you have that thing where you can't be in a lot of places?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, I'm not great with loud noises. I have incredible olfactory senses. I am more smell attuned to time and place. Sort of the verisimilitude of a place and time is through my nose.

[Marc Maron]

Did you ever, like. Were you ever able to find some. I mean, because we're both sober and there's this process of this. Were you ever able to, you know, find a place of forgiveness for Tony?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, fuck, yes.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, of course.

[Marc Maron]

When did that happen?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, I mean, forgiveness. I mean, he just wasn't there. He just didn't factor.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I mean, in a weird way, he just didn't factor.

[Marc Maron]

Right. He was never there.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

He just was never there. And the existence of him was there because of course, he was famous, so people were attached to him. I wasn't attached to him at all. But I will tell you in answer to. Was she cold or were they cold? My mother was cool. Tony was yummy.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But yummy went away really early now. Yummy. He was yummy when he was with you when you were a child. Yummy.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Zero consistency for that. Yummy. But I know it was yummy.

[Marc Maron]

Charming.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So actual memory I have at one point, Tony Curtis now was married to his third wife, a woman named Leslie Allen, a model.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Had his first son with her. He was doing. So it was at his career when he was doing a TV series with Roger Moore called the Persuaders. I don't know, it was sort of a James Bond. They were paired kind of detective y guys.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And it was with Roger Moore.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Another charmer.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

My sister and I went and visited in the summer to London.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

How old were you?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I was 12.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And then he rented a house in Sardinia. And he had a convertible Rolls Royce. Tony Curtis loved cars. And the car was driven to Sardinia through a ferry so that he could have his car. Cause we were going to be there a month and we were visiting him. It was the longest we ever spent with him. And I remember when we landed it at, when we got to the house, none of the bags were there because they were in the car being driven. We had flown and, you know, Leslie and my sister Kelly were making house and we were renting a house. So they were, you know, making house and the baby was with the nanny. And I remember Tony said, I want to go for a swim. And I said, I'll go. And he and I walked down this sort of craggly path to the ocean. We were on the coast, Esmeralda, in Sardinia. And I remember we both took off our clothes. I was wearing undies, he was wearing those white dude undies that you guys wear.

[Marc Maron]

Tighty whities.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Tighty whities, you know. And we dove into the ocean. And I remember the feeling that I was the brave one. I was the one who didn't have her bathing suit. Cause it was in my suitcase. But I didn't care that he saw in me in that moment. Like that was the bonding moment of my entire childhood with him was diving off a rock into the ocean in Sardinia. And the look on his face, that that was his girl, you know, that I was his daughter and I was just like him.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Ah.

[Marc Maron]

Did that stick?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

No.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, no and yes. Whatever. Fuck, I don't care.

[Marc Maron]

But, but ultimately, when do you decide to pursue acting?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, that was an accident. It's too. Really, It's a boring story. Yeah, I'll give you a 30 second version. I went to college. I had no business in college. My mother was the most famous woman who had ever graduated from the college University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

[Marc Maron]

Stockton.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, baby, yeah. My MOT from Merced, she went to, at the time, College of the Pacific. She was a genius. She graduated in three years at 16. My mother was really bright. Yeah, I got in there with my C minus average and 840 combined SAT scores because they wanted me, really, because my mother was the most famous alum and I was in college, had no business in college.

[Marc Maron]

It's just, you do it though, you.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Know, you do it. But I had no business in college. And at that Christmas. So this is 1976, I came home from Christmas and a girlfriend of mine was in the same college. She Lived in Beverly Hills. She had a tennis court. And there was a tennis teacher named Chuck Binder who taught tennis on her court. You know, this is what you do in Beverly Hills. Yeah, but then you give lessons to the family whose court it is for free. But you can use the court to teach other people. That's how the game works.

[Marc Maron]

That's how tennis guys get by.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

That's how they do it.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

They don't have a court of their own.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So they use the courts of their. Anyway, and when I came home at Christmas, went over to my friend's house, Chuck was there and he said, hey, Jamie, I'm managing actors now. I'm managing a woman named Karen Lamb, who was the sort of Heather Locklear of her time. Very beautiful, blonde. She was married to Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.

[Marc Maron]

Oof.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Another troubled guy, but beautiful woman actress. She was in a lot of TV movies. He said, I'm managing actors. You know, they're looking for Nancy Drew at Universal. You should go up for it. And I went, oh, okay. Had no idea. Drove to Universal.

[Marc Maron]

No acting experience, please.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But I was cute. I was brown haired.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I was Nancy Drew, 18 and, you know, whatever. And I didn't get the part. But he said, you know, they really liked you. I said, well, that's great. He goes, you should stick around. I was like, yeah. But again, I told you the story. The college I went to allowed you the month of January to do one class, like a concentrated month of study. So I called the drama department and said, hi, if I stay in LA and try to get jobs as an actor and go to acting class and dance class, can I write a paper that would qualify me for credit for the month of study? Breaking into show business. I'll go to class every day, blah, blah, blah. And they said, yes. So for the month of January, 1977, I went to auditions. Chuck sent me out for things, blah, blah, blah. Took acting classes, dance classes. A man named David Craig, who taught you to sing and act. Yeah, I can't sing for anything. And that was terrifying. I took a commercial acting class. Peggy Fury, who was a serious acting teacher, who had narcolepsy, and she would fall asleep in the middle of class. And I remember I did a Tennessee Williams. And I'm not Christopher Guest, I don't do accents, just without studying them. And I remember I did a Southern accent in this scene. And I remember at the end of an acting class then the class is allowed to opine about what they thought. And I remember somebody raised Their hand and said, I thought it was fine, except your accent was bad or something. And I remember. I remember crying and I remember going home thinking, what the fuck am I doing? Why do I give a shit what that person thinks? Like, this is an acting class.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

This is supposed to teach me?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

What did I learn?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Feelings hurt.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I got my feelings hurt off. I mean, it was awful. So I never went back to that class anyway. And by the end of that month, Chuck said, you know, they still have contract players at Universal. Contract players back in the day were actors they kept in a. In a group that they would use. They would pay them every month.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But then they would use them in small parts in movies and TV shows. And the hope was once you signed a contract that you would pop right? Then they had you for a small amount of money, but they could exploit you as a big star.

[Marc Maron]

Were your parents studio players? Yeah, of course.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

My mother, very much so. So he said, they still have a contract system at Universal. I auditioned for the contract system to a woman named Monique James, who was the west coast version. There was an east coast version, a woman named Eleanor Kilgallen. And their job was to find talent and pool them.

[Marc Maron]

That must have been towards the end of that system.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It was almost the exact end, but two years into it before it ended. So I auditioned and at the end of my audition, I said to her, this is. I'm me. I don't know anything. I said, excuse me. This was really fun. Thank you so much. I'm going back to college in two days. So I need to know if this is gonna happen kind of soon because I'm going back to College on like January 28th.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And they called the next day and said I had got a contract with Universal and I quit college and became an actor. So it was the last thing I thought I was gonna do. And now all of a sudden, I was paid $235 a week as an actor, as a contract player.

[Marc Maron]

But isn't that interesting that, you know, despite it being the last thing you thought you would be doing, that you.

Entered the system that your mom was.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

In, in a full arc, and I'm gonna hit the point of the arc. My godfather is Lou Wasserman. Lou Wasserman was the chairman of Universal.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So, you know, I remember Lou Wasserman calling my mother, saying, I just heard that Jamie has become a contract player.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Uh huh.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Now you've known me an hour, maybe 45 minutes, 48 minutes.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm this person at 17. I'm this person at 7? Yeah, I'm this person. When Ray Stark, who was a very close friend of my parents, who produced the Exorcist, called my mother and said, will you let Jamie audition for Reagan in the Exorcist? And my mother was like, no. But I'm this person.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So whatever this person is that's now successful as this person, I was still this person. Yeah, I'm the same exact person.

[Marc Maron]

I guess there's a core thing that doesn't really change in us if it doesn't get beaten out of you one way or the other.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah. Far out.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So now you're in the game now.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But then I became an actor, but then I got fired. So then I got put onto a TV series. I did a TV series called Operation Petticoat, which was a remake of the movie that Tony Curtis and Cary Grant starred in. Now it was a TV movie. I played the part opposite Tony Curtis's part. It's a little weird. And I did that show for a year. It turned into a TV series. It was a movie turned into a TV series, did it for a year, got fired. They fired. So the premise is, of course, it's a Navy sub during World War II. Five army nurses get on board. Right. Because they're stranded in some atol somewhere. And now hilarity ensues because, you know, five army nurses on a navy sub with 13 guys. Right?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So the premise is cute for a movie because at the end of the movie, the women get off. Yeah, well, on a TV series, they never get off. So every scene was like. Every scene we go, captain, excuse me, hi. When are we getting off the ship?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Anyway, they fired 11 of 13 cast members, but kept the premise of the fucking show. As if the premise of the show was the good thing and the actors were bad.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

As if the idea that we could get off, as soon as that docked, we would be off. We're army nurses. We're not supposed to be on a Navy sub. And instead they fired me. I thought my life was over. Marc Maron.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I thought they were going to drop me from my contract because contract system, they do every six month options. It's not your option, it's theirs.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So every six months they decide if they're going to keep you and if they're going to renew your option. It was awful. I thought I was going to lose everything. I now was going to have to go back.

[Marc Maron]

How old were you? 19.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

19, 20. I was 19. And. And during that I was fired. I was feeling shitty. And that was when Chuck Binder called me and said, they're making this little low budget horror movie in Hollywood. I've put you up for a part, you should go audition. And I did. And that was Halloween. So if I will tell you, had I not been fired from Operation Petticoat, I would never have made Halloween. And then they canceled Operation Petticoat like two weeks into the next season, of course.

[Marc Maron]

And that was, that was.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And that was then the beginning of my life.

[Marc Maron]

The real thing.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Now, do you remember, like, did you watch like your mom in Psycho or.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No.

[Marc Maron]

Or anything? No, no.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

A. I'm a scaredy cat. I just not have zero interest in being frightened.

[Marc Maron]

But did you watch your mom act in anything when you started acting?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Really?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

How do you watch your mom act in anything? I don't know.

[Marc Maron]

I don't live that life.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I know, but there's was no repetition.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

There was tv.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Or a movie. I didn't go to movies that my mother was in.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah, right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And occasionally a movie would be on tv. I never saw any of the work my parents did for a very, very, very long time.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. It's interesting because, you know, like, like anybody else, you're not going to, you know, my dad was a doctor. I'm not going to go to the hospital. I mean, and people think, you know, that Hollywood on some level is so much different, but it's not in some ways.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, the only difference now is the Internet, which allows a daily, you know, now dump. Well, and I'm gonna bring something up with you just because it's front of mind.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Charlie Crist was killed two days ago, correct?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Charlie.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm sorry.

[Marc Maron]

Kirk.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Kirk. I just call him Christ. I think because of Christ. Because of, because of his deep, deep belief. I mean, I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But I believe he was a man of faith. And I hope in that moment when he died that he felt connected to his faith, even though I find what he. His ideas were abhorrent to me.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I still believe he's a father and a husband and a man of faith. And I. I hope whatever connection to God means that he felt it. My point Is yesterday was 9 11. I know there is video of his assassination. I know people who've seen it. Yesterday we watched again these images of those buildings coming down. We don't know what we're talking about. Analog, digital. We're talking about a childhood where it was like I had Famous parents who were in the movies. But I never saw the movies. I didn't see the images. I didn't. I would have to. How would I ever see them? We didn't have DVDs. We didn't have VHS. We didn't have. They didn't put them on TV. Today, we as a society are bombarded with imagery. So we don't know what the longitudinal effects of seeing those towers come down over and over and over and over again or watching his execution over and over and over again. We watched the Zapruder film, by the way, my birthday, November 22nd. I'm associated with this awful day of someone being assassinated on television. But it's. As you know, this Bruder film is the only visual document that moves, that shares that horror of what happened. But here we have now these images.

[Marc Maron]

All the time, every day, and we.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Are inured to them and we are numb to them, but they are in there. We don't know. We don't know enough psychologically about what that does. What does that do? That kind of. I don't ever want to see this footage of this man being shot.

[Marc Maron]

I didn't watch it. I think it diminishes the depth of humanity.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But, but, but if that's the case, then is that the reason why we're all feeling this lack of humanity? Because we are just saturated with this image, these images?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think we. Our engagement with the technology is. Has become. It's total. We've adapted to it and it's taken over a good part of our mind. So I think that when it comes to depth or understanding human experience in a visceral way, it gets numbed.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, well, I'm worried.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

There's nothing not to worry about.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm worried and I am buoyed when I hear that schools are forbidding phones, that people, you know, are trying to limit the amount of the Internet that use it for the tool that it is research or. You know what I mean?

[Marc Maron]

It's funny because me, I use the Internet primarily when it comes to looking at things.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

To like. Did anyone like that talk I have with Jamie Lee Curtis?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Did you actually look that up?

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, no, I don't look it up. But like, my engagement with it is usually around what I've done to see if people saw it, to get that sort of feedback. That's. That's my dopamine. It's not watching assassinations or watching news over and over again.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I'm the exact opposite.

[Marc Maron]

It's really like. It's validation. It's not, it's not for me to disengage.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

My favorite line from the Heidi Chronicles is when Heidi goes to visit her best friend from college, Susan, who's now a TV executive, and she goes, and they have a scene in her office. And then as she's leaving, the secretary or executive assistant. We can't say secretary. Yeah, the executive assistant. As Heidi walks by, says, Ms. Holland, do you need validation? And it's such a play on words about what you're talking about, which is that the Internet is that what the Internet has done has made us all desperate for validation. Because it certainly has poisoned young people into that idea of trying to get the most amount of, of likes. I did it with air quotes. You can't see them. And what does that mean?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

My secret of the Internet, Marc Maron. And I'm happy to share it here with you. And maybe, maybe it'll be what I.

[Marc Maron]

Leave for me for you to work on.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Don't read comments. None. Like, I have a, like Christopher Guest.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

His movie opened today or last week or whenever the fuck this is. And Spinal and you know, New York Times gave it a wonderful review. Really funny. Very.

[Marc Maron]

We can read that, right? That's not a comment.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And he doesn't, he doesn't read any show business journalism. Nothing. Not journalism. You know what I mean? Sure. He reads nothing about show business.

[Marc Maron]

Not even a critic. He respects nothing.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Nothing. He doesn't read anything that has to do with show business.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Okay.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But that's his firewall. My firewall is I put out into the Internet.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

What I think and feel.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But I decide. I say what I need to say and then I don't need to see what you think of what I said.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, that's, and I have. But I, but by the way, I've gotten into a lot of trouble because of course, the portal is open to a lot of people with a lot of anger. And I've had a lot of friends call me and go, hi, how are you? Hi. No, this is the voice I get. Hi, how are you doing? And I go, I'm great. What's up? Oh, just checking on you.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I'm like, because why? Oh, the comments. And it's something I've either put out politically or something. Whatever.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I don't read that stuff. I, I do like the reason I like criticism. If they're smart people. Like for my last special or whatever, I, I, I like to hear thinky people's insight into what I'M doing because it kind of broadens my understanding of what I might have done to somebody else. And it makes me think it actually helps me because, you know, my parents.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Didn'T do it, so, you know.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah. Yeah. My parents didn't do it. My mom was really. My mom did say, be yourself. My mom did recognize something.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And was always hoping that I. I mean, she knew I was funny.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Because I've been this person's. But, you know, that wasn't the sort of opening salvo of my creative work, was me being funny.

[Marc Maron]

Right. So, like, I guess, like, after all the, like. Because you had a big movie career and do now.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But I mean, this is.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

How about fucking that?

[Marc Maron]

I know, it's crazy.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, that's the thing, Mark Marin.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, you were.

You were huge.

And then, like, it's not like you disappeared or anything, but. But, but now you're bigger than ever in a totally different way, you know?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Why?

[Marc Maron]

It's such a rare fucking thing, isn't it?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It's amazing and it's beautiful and. And I'm, I'm, I'm leaning in in every possible way.

[Marc Maron]

When did the, the drugs happen and, and how did that drugs happened? Because what year are we talking, like.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, drugs happened. Well, it's funny because I actually, actually had. I brought it because I'm going to talk about Richard Lewis later today. And so I brought, in fact, something to show them, but I'll show it to you when I leave because it's in my car. So I dabbled. So I dabbled. You know, obviously, when you were a kid, let me say this. I grew up in a house where alcohol was in those push. Those decanters that pushed out a full shot. They had silver tops. They were pretty glass containers. Bourbon, scotch, vodka, whatever. And you pushed the top and it measured out a shot. I grew up in a house with that. So when I was a teenager, and you had that. So you'd get a Coke and you'd go over to the vodka one, and then you'd hit the shot of vodka because you were with your friends and.

[Marc Maron]

You'Re like, hey, let's go do this.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And, you know, so there was a little of that. It was a little dabbling of that. There might have been a Quaalude or two in my sordid past, but again, it was all pretty easy. Cocaine, obviously, in the 80s, became a thing. I knew I was an addict. I knew that. When I say an addict, an addict is. You are addicted to the feeling you Know, addict has such a bad word. But the truth is if you just look at the word addiction, you're just. You like the feeling. You want it again and again.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I knew I needed to do something and I went, I called a woman.

[Marc Maron]

So you. But you got, you knew you were out of control.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I was never out of control, Marc Maron.

[Marc Maron]

But you knew you had a problem.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I knew I had a problem. I was never out of control.

[Marc Maron]

But this wasn't when you were a teenager.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It was, this is me when I was in my 20s. But I also knew that I was never out of control. That was, I was a control. I'm a high bottom. Like Everest bottom.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So I remember I called, I can't remember who she was. I think she's no longer here. She wrote a book called you can never eat lunch in this town again.

[Marc Maron]

Oh yeah, I remember that book.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I can't remember her name.

[Marc Maron]

I don't either.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I called her because I knew she had stopped, she had gotten sober or had stopped cocaine. I remember I asked her, like, I called her, I cold called her.

[Marc Maron]

Did you know Carrie Fisher?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Briefly, yeah. Yeah, briefly. But I never, that wasn't who I called. Anyway, I called this woman and anyway, she gave me like the name of somebody and I, I, I got off of that pretty quickly. And then she wrote a fucking book. And in her book she actually wrote, you know, I was so surprised when my phone rang and I thought it was Tony Curtis because he had a big drug problem and it was his daughter. Like, I was like, bitch.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Are you, Are you really?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Anyway, I was mortified. Luckily nobody read it. I don't remember her name anyway. But then, and then I was just, you know, I was a dabbler. I just was.

[Marc Maron]

So that didn't do anything. You didn't?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, I'm saying I liked. No, I was, I'm fine. Sure, I get it.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I was a fun person.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So let's have some. And I had a plastic surgery when I was very young, in my 30s. It's too long of a story. But the DP on Perfect said that he wouldn't shoot me one day. Cause I had puffy eyes. And so right after that movie, I had under eye surgery. And they gave me Vicodin. And that began a sort of 10 year dabbling of opiates.

[Marc Maron]

And you got out before fentanyl?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, I would be dead.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Mark, I wouldn't be here. There's no way to be here. I got out before fentanyl is the great that would be the title of the book that I'll never write. Anyway, my point is, here's how I got sober. I had an incident with my sister, my older sister, where I had pocketed hers because she had visited and.

[Marc Maron]

So you were a pill popper all day? Kind of.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Vika clock. It's like wine o'.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Clock. Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, no, no. It was like an afternoon. Late afternoon. Anyway. And I also read Esquire, so. I don't read Esquire. I don't get Esquire. It was in a doctor's office. It had Jerry Springer on the COVID I have it in my car. It was January of. And I open this magazine, and there is an article, Vicodin, My Vicodin, by an author named Tom Chiarella, who was outing himself, his family, his editor and friends by writing this article. And the opening of the article was, I don't know where my children's birth certificates are. I don't know where my marriage certificate is. I don't know where the deed to my house is, but I can tell you where every Vicodin is hidden in my house. And then he described. There were two in the left toe of my cowboy boot in the hall closet, blah, blah, blah. And I remember reading it, and I thought, oh, wow, that's me.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm secret. And then I went to a girlfriend of mine who I thought was sober, wasn't. She told me that she also was addicted to them. She gave me the name of a doctor.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And then that day, I got sober. That night, I got sober. I just woke up that next morning realizing that she was gonna be dead. I'd be at her funeral, I'd have blood, her blood, on my hands.

[Marc Maron]

Did she die?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No. No. Sober and great.

[Marc Maron]

And where does Richard Lewis factor in?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I just.

[Marc Maron]

Hold up.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Marc Maron, you're so pushy.

[Marc Maron]

Or hardly.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Or I would be dead. And she'd be at my funeral.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Hugging my kids with blood on her hands. That was the split. I had two children that day. I called Richard Lewis, who I knew was sober, who I worked together with on Anything But Love, but I knew he was sober. And he said, stay where you are. And he called somebody and a woman. Cause I was afraid to go into a public room as a very. I was afraid to go into some recovery meeting by myself because I was a public figure. And he called someone who is also a public figure, who was sober. And she called me and met me at a meeting that was 2390. 9. I've been sober since.

[Marc Maron]

I love those stories. If there's one thing a sobriety taught me in terms of conversation and in terms of listening, because I really think that the idea of one alcoholic talking to another being the core of the program is a lot to do with what happens here sometimes. And I think that. I think that recovery over time taught me how to be an empathetic listener. Because, you know, once you walk into recovery and it becomes the priority, and, you know, someone's gonna tell their story, you know where it's gonna go, but it'll get you every time.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, sure, sure.

[Marc Maron]

It's like, you know, just like when.

You said Richard Lewis called a woman.

And, like, I feel like my eyes welling up, you know, because I.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

That's exactly right, you know, because that's where it happens.

[Marc Maron]

And you're like, help is on the way.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Help is on the way. That's why when we first met in the hall of your house with your cats.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And you told me that you were sober the same amount of years, but a few months past me.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I said to you, that's my hand in the dark, reaching out. And that you felt a hand in the dark of somebody who was a little sober before you.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Who was sober, reaching her hand out. That's how it feels.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

When you're in the dark of addiction and you think you're alone, and somebody reaches out their hand and you don't know who it is, and you grab it, and you know that they're gonna pull you into the light.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

That's.

[Marc Maron]

Well, mine was a woman who I was in love with, and I was kind of reluctant to get sober, but I held onto her for as long as I could, and that didn't work out. But I do. She did get me sober, and she went through a lot of shit with. With me, but, you know, she's okay. I'm okay. I think. We don't speak, but I think she's okay. But that hand thing, the. The little piece you gave me, what is that?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

That.

[Marc Maron]

That foundation.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Okay. It's. I'm actually closing it at the end of the year, so. Again, right before COVID Yeah. I. Like, if I had heard about Lynn and you and I were friends.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I would have written you a letter.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I would have said. You know, I would have said something about loss and about strength. And then I would have said at the end of the letter, my hand in yours, Jamie. Which was just my way of saying to people all the time, I'm not with you. Not going to be there with you. But you know what it would feel like to have my hand in yours. I'm sending you that feeling. And. And I thought one day, and it was before COVID I thought. I collect these little sculptures by an artist named Ann Ricketts. I often give sober friends her little feet. She has little feet. And I send them to my sober friends and say, be where your feet are. And as a little reminder, trudging the path. And I called her and I said, if I create a company, will you create a sculpture of two hands holding. She said, yes. I was gonna sell them on Instagram, Right. I thought I would just sell them and give money to Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. Long story short, it turned out it became a foundation. It became a much bigger company. We had a lot of products, and for five years. And then Covid hit. So that was before COVID Yeah. And then In March of 2020, Covid hit, and we launched the company right in the middle in August of that year. And so it's a company that offers comfort items to people in times of crisis. And there was no bigger crisis in the world than the pandemic. And so our little company became a very successful company.

[Marc Maron]

That's nice. It was like. It caught me off guard this morning. Cause, you know, you came early, and I was like, I have a very short but specific process leading into an interview. And, you know, and I blew it. No, no, no.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Busted up.

[Marc Maron]

It's not. It's just me kind of getting into a mind, and I just, you know, woken up and I'd fed my cats, and I was on the phone with my friend Jack, who I haven't talked to a while, and then you were just waving your hands in front of my door.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

In front of your door early, like, 45 minutes.

[Marc Maron]

But then you come in and we're loaded up, we sit on the floor. You give me a gift in remembrance of Lynn. And, you know, usually I can kind of keep it together, but, like, I'm like, oh, if this is happening before we even get out there, I don't know what's gonna happen.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, I didn't even know what out there meant, to be honest.

[Marc Maron]

No, no.

But I'm just saying, for you, the feelings, I think it's more about, you know, you feel like, you know, you can think about loss, and you can think about the experience of it and the loss itself. But, you know, at some point, you feel like you have the feelings a bit under control, you know, and then they're just right there. And I appreciate you, you know, being there for that and making me have that good. It was grounding somehow.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

That's good, because I know this. You're ending this part of your life.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's another loss soonish.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Right.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

That's the same. My hand in yours and wherever the universe takes you.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

You can always call.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

You.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

You can actually. I'm one of those people, so.

[Marc Maron]

But for you, you know when you do everything everywhere all at once and you win an Oscar and then, like, you know, all of a sudden you were like the. The elevation of you and your being, which is purely you. I mean, that must have felt. I don't. I can't even imagine.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, you can't. Neither can I. I still can't. What the best part of it is. It was pure.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Like, the best part was.

[Marc Maron]

Didn't expect it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, yeah. I remind people. I remind people because people, once something takes its form and starts get elevated through marketing, through everything, it elevates to a place where people assume a lot about it. I remind people we made that movie in January of 2020, in 38 days in Simi Valley in an abandoned office building that was the Countrywide Savings and Loan building before the market collapsed. And that building was, like, gone, like, in a day. They pulled all the computers out and left this campus, and it has changed hands six times. They shoot movies and commercials there all the time. And in 38 days, a $12 million movie called Everything Everywhere all at Once about the multiverse was made. There wasn't a person involved in that movie that assumed anything other than it was kind of weird and cool.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, maybe it'll get out there.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And we'd get out there. And I did it for three reasons. I did it because it was shot in Los Angeles. If that movie had been shot anywhere else, I would never have been in it. I did it because they paid me a little money, enough to pay cash flow. And mostly I did it because Michelle Yeoh was gonna be in it and I was gonna play her girlfriend, Nemesis. And I thought it was cool. Yeah, I thought she was cool. I always thought she was an amazing woman and she was gonna star in this weird movie. I didn't understand it. My young padawan, who works with me as a development executive at my now very successful company is named Russell Goldman. And when I walked in and said I'd been offered a movie by the Daniels, he said, you've, like, without even blinking, he said, oh, my God, you have to do it. And I was like, really? He goes, oh, my God, they're geniuses. Yes. Did you see Swiss Army Man? I said I did, but I didn't. I mean, I appreciated it, but he goes, they're geniuses.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Turned down for what? They're geniuses. And it turned out to be true. I credit Russell Goldman.

[Marc Maron]

And in terms of like, you know, I know you've been pretty public about, you know, just being you, letting it all hang out.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, baby.

[Marc Maron]

And, you know, you seem to get a lot of attention just for that. That, like a woman of a certain age owning it and not having any insecurity about it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I mean, then I would be. That sounds saintly. I'm not a saint.

[Marc Maron]

No, I know, I know, but you make choices.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I understand. I look in the mirror, I know what's there. I know what's not there. And I know how to, how to, you know, look it. I did. I. We just did Freak Year Friday.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Had a wonderful summer. We actually, you know, had a really good.

[Marc Maron]

How's she doing?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Fantastic.

[Marc Maron]

You know, it's weird. Like, I, you know, I.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

She's fantastic.

[Marc Maron]

I just, for, for some reason with Lindsay Lohan, I, I feel for her. And, and I was. I'm very happy.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, I feel really happy.

[Marc Maron]

No, I feel, I feel like I, I feel that some, like, I only pick up pieces of it, but it was always like, I hope she's gonna come out of it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

She is in a great, she's in a great life. She has a baby.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

She has a two year old.

[Marc Maron]

But that's one of those stories.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

She has a beautiful husband. It's one of those very strong family unit.

[Marc Maron]

I just want.

I'm glad she's good. That's all.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

She's awesome. My point was, you know, the movie was really successful. And then they did. They did an evening, Freaker Friday, this Disney one here. And we, and you know, the movie came out, went around the world, did it all, had a great time, did well. Oh, did great.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Came back and they were like, we're gonna do one more event where all of the audience come dress like your character. Dress like Tess. And you're gonna come and, you know, greet the. The. At the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. And this is like four weeks into the release of the movie. I was like, okay, super fun. I'm gonna come in character.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So I pulled out my wig, pulled out the clothes that even though everybody else loved, I really had struggled with, and, you know, belted it up and kind of toddled out on stage and did my thing, and then went backstage and they said, just do a little quick video to the fans thanking them for their support. Right. Social media.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Somebody with a camera, like, with a phone.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

A phone, yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm sitting in a chair. I'm like, hi, everybody, it's Jamie Lee Curtis. Thank you guys so much. I'm so glad. It was the comedy hit of the summer. We loved making it. Blah, blah, blah. What I didn't know, and I could show you, but I won't show you on a podcast because no one will see it. But there was a video of me where I'm a little busty. Let's just put it this way. Like, packing serious heat in this video from the angle it was shot at. Right. It's a Disney movie. And it literally became the biggest thing for me of the summer in the sense of, like, people coming up to me going, like, holy. So when you talk about sort of fearlessness, physical fearlessness, for me, it's just being the kind of who I am, where I am in the moment, or using something of a character to accentuate, maybe something that's not so good about whatever. And it was hilarious to me that the thing that actually got the most attention was this little thing, and it was like an afterthought. Like, it was like, the last thing I did in the movie was say thank you to the fans. And the next thing I knew, it was all about my boobies. And it was just like, whoa, okay. Thank you, Internet.

[Marc Maron]

You read some of those comments?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I didn't read any of them, but I. I just was told that it. It became a bit of a thing.

[Marc Maron]

So when did you start producing?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Listen to you. Oh, you got very serious.

[Marc Maron]

Well, because, like, I watched that movie last night, the Lost Bus.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I know.

[Marc Maron]

And.

And I know whatever that journey was, I got a. I got it. I had no idea what it was about. You know, I get these things, and I'm like, all right, I want to, you know, do my due diligence and watch the project.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I appreciate that.

[Marc Maron]

And first of all, what a menacing, difficult movie it is to watch when you live through these fires. And, you know, fortunately, I was not affected by it, but, you know, the way it's captured by. The director was green. Greenway.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Paul Greengrass.

[Marc Maron]

And this feels like, in a way, a smaller movie for him, you know, because it's so intimate, so for.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

For the listener.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I. I have wanted to produce things for a long time. I'm an idea girl. I. I write Books for children that are very, very successful.

[Marc Maron]

That's great.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I've been trying to get filmed books and ideas for quite a long time, but you can't do it with. I mean, it's very, very hard to do ever. Even when you have a company behind you.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So if you don't have a company.

[Marc Maron]

To get a film out into the.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

World, to get it born, raised and distributed.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And there are many steps in that process. So over the years, I have tried to buy the rights to a book, develop it, but I never could get liftoff. It could never take flight. They always died on the vine. But I kept trying. I'm an idea girl. I think of ideas all the time. And I made the Halloween movies with Jason Blum, and I didn't know it was a trilogy because he didn't mention it. No one mentioned it. Not even David Gordon Green. They did not mention to me that it was a trilogy. But we made the first one in 2018, and it was very successful. When that movie came out was the same time as the Paradise Fire. The Paradise Fire that decimated the town of Paradise, California, was November 8, 2018. So it was right after the Halloween movie.

[Marc Maron]

Right about before your birthday.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

It was right before my birthday, but it was also, I'm in California, and it was the deadliest wildfire in California history. And I was aware of it, for sure. But at the same time, when the 2018 Halloween movie came out and was successful and then I found out that they were doing a couple more, I went to Jason Blum and said, hey, Jason Blum, I have a lot of ideas. How about you give me a deal? How about I get a first look deal with you and you give me a small amount of money for development so that I can pay a development executive? And he agreed. Now, Marc Maron, Jason's a good businessman, and that made good business. Right. He wanted me to continue to do that work. Did he believe in me as a producer? No. Does he now? Yes. Did he give me that? Because it was good business and I.

[Marc Maron]

Was going to continue with the company.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

You were a good company.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yes. I guarantee you he wasn't like, oh, this is gonna turn into something. And almost immediately, I brought them the Patricia Cornwell Scarpetta books. So I'm friends with Patricia. I found out that the rights to her book series has never been brought to screen in 30 years. I brought it to Blumhouse and we bought it and started developing it as a TV series that comes out next year for Amazon, starring Nicole Kidman. As Scarpetta and me as her sister Dorothy. Something I never thought I'd be in. I thought I was just gonna produce it. But right away, something I brought Jason turned into something quite big.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And clearly I brought them three other things. There was a TV show that was on a year ago called the Sticky, which was about a Canadian maple syrup heist that was a show the Comet Pictures produced. So all of a sudden, I think Jason started to pay some attention to me. In August of 21, I was in Sun Valley, Idaho. I was reading the Washington Post, and there was a review of Lizzie Johnson's book, Paradise the Story of the American Wildfire. And it was a review of her book. And then there was a sidebar of a story pulled from the book of a school bus driver named Kevin McKay and a teacher named Mary Ludwig, who saved the lives of 22 students trapped on the bus for eight hours. And. And it was a kind of a sidebar.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I said out loud, well, that's the movie. I was with Chris in the kitchen on August 20th. On the 20th of August. And I explained to him. He was like, what? I said, oh. And I told him the story. I said, well, that's the movie. Yeah, of course.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And then the next day, I didn't do anything. And the next day, I was driving to visit my sister Kelly, and I listened to Scott Simon on NPR Weekend Edition. He said, hi to Scott Simon. My first guest today is Lizzie Johnson, the author of Paradise Lizzie. You know, the story that really got me was the story of Kevin McKay and Mary Ludwig. And I pulled my car over on the side of the road, and I called Jason Blum, and I said, I am about to send you two links, one to an npr, one to the Washington Post. I want to buy that book. I want to make a movie. I believe it'll be the most important thing either one of us ever do in the movie business. And he said, okay. And he agreed. We bought the rights to the book. I tracked down Lizzie Johnson's agents. He said, I need to make sure that there's a story here, that I need to send it to some writers. The day he sent it to Brad Ingoldsby, Brad Inglesby called him and said, I'll write it on spec. And within 36 hours, we had the rights to the book. We had a writer who was going to adapt it. And, you know, within a month, I had contacted Mary and Kevin and made an alliance and began the process of producing a movie.

[Marc Maron]

So they were involved.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Well, of course, we're telling their story or a fictionalized version of their story. It's fiction based on truth.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But that's how the movie came together. And then Paul Greengrass, then Apple came on board. Then Paul Greengrass, who was the. I had two directors on my list. I'm a producer. I had two directors. Paul Greengrass, It's a wild other swing in the other direction. Ang Lee, did you ever see the Ice Storm?

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

Of course.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Okay. It felt his ability to tell an American story like the Ice Storm.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Sure.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I felt he could do a great job with this story of this real life human, this Kevin McKay bus driver, and Mary Ludwig, this teacher. And these children in the midst of the fire. I knew that the. The center of the story had to be those people because you could never tell that big a story. As it turns out, Paul Greengrass can tell that big of a story visually.

[Marc Maron]

But the interesting thing is you're saying.

It'S a big story, but he was on top of people all the time. And it was like a genius thing.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But that's his gift. His background is documentary filmmaking.

[Marc Maron]

But it's like right from the beginning you're watching it. And fucking McConaughey, when he sets his.

Mind to it, man, he's the fucking best.

The best.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Okay, So I think he's like Gary Cooper. I think he's like Henry Fonda.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I think he's like a quiet old western star. It's stoicism and strength and deep humanity in a close up.

[Marc Maron]

That's true.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And the camera is on his face, his eyes, and he's so eager.

[Marc Maron]

Really inhabits stuff, man, because like right at the beginning, you know, it's on him, like the shooting. I can see the documentary part of it in the way it's cut and stuff. Sure, sure, sure. But the choice to make it about people and to be that close to.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Them, that's the story.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

I understand it's a big story, but.

You know, because of the way he.

Shot it all the way through, you.

Are living in their skin.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But that's why I knew that's the movie, because I knew that was the way in to tell a story of this magnitude.

[Marc Maron]

But it's a human story. It's a magnitude story, but it's really.

About a guy saving a bunch of kids. And the interesting thing about the way.

He shot it is that all the stuff that he deals with when he's.

Shooting people, you're like a foot away. And then. And when he shoots the fire, it's a monster.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And it is a monster.

[Marc Maron]

Totally.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And as we, as you mentioned at the beginning of this part of the conversation, I live in the Pacific Palisades. You live in Glendale, which is adjacent to Pasadena, Altadena and the Eaton fire. I live on the skirt of outskirts of the Palisades fire. And, you know, we just moved back into our house after eight months. We were out for eight months after the fire. But we have a house. We have. We. We did not lose our history. We did not lose our family history. And we both know too many people. So it is a. The tragedy, of course, is that here we made this movie a year ago. We were editing the movie when in January of this year, these fires happened in here. But in the midst, in the middle of 2021 to now, was Lahaina, where we watched an entire town burn. People taking shelter in the ocean because it was the only place they could. In our movie, people take shelter in a lake.

[Marc Maron]

Creek.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I mean, which is harrowing.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That's the scene again, right up on the people.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

So my instincts as an actor are my same instincts as a producer. I know a good story. I know what I can bring to it. And what I got to bring to it is the humanity, which is I got to go to Kevin McKay and Mary Ludwig, who've become friends of mine. Now, these are people who I will know for the rest of my life because I'm the bridge. See, I'm the one extending my hand in sobriety, saying, trust me, I'm safe. Right?

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I'm also aware that we're about to tell a fiction. And I'm gonna be the one to help them understand that it's not a documentary. We're not making a doc about their experience.

[Marc Maron]

We're making a film and how they feel about it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I think they're both very proud that how they're represented and what the movie says and does honors their experience, even if it's not the exact experience, just for your listeners, because it's sort of fascinating to me. Kevin McKay and Mary both had a weird connection to me. So Kevin McKay, when I first called him, said, you know, Jamie, we have a weird connection. I said, oh, really? What is it? He said, you know, when. When my mom was dying. Because his mom is dying. When the fire hit, his mom died, I think a couple months later, but she was ill. Yeah. He said, the last good time I had with my mom was going to see Halloween 2018 in a theater. We both loved Halloween and we went out to dinner, blah, blah, blah. And we went out, and that was October 19, 2018. Then the fire was November 8. And then I think she passed, you know, soon after that. So he said, the last happy time I had with my mom was that. And so that bonded us, you know, was a. We. We had a good. I felt like we had a good level of trust. But then Mary Ludwig, the school teacher. Yeah, I'm speaking to her, she was more hesitant.

[Marc Maron]

America for yes.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And I said, you know, we were talking at one point, she said, you know, we have a weird connection. And I said, really? What is it? She said, my father dated your mother now. I was like, really? My mother was from. Well, we talked about Stockton and Merced. And Mary's father was a Marine, and he went to the University of the Pacific, where my mother went. And he dated Jeanette Helen Morrison, my mother's name, before she was discovered and changed her name and became Janet Leigh. And she said that, you know, her father was a really strong man, and she hadn't seen him cry much in his life. And she said, I remember very specifically, one of the few times I ever saw him cry was the day that Jeanette Helen Morrison died. And so I have now two strangers who are feeling very connected to just the circumstances of life, who I'm extending my hand to, saying, can you trust me? And I'm sober, as you know, so as sober people, we say what we mean. We mean what we say. We don't say it mean. And we are trustworthy. I want to be trustworthy. And so I felt, as a producer, that was my main job, was to make sure that the real part of the story melded into the fiction and that both could be supported.

[Marc Maron]

How'd you get Matthew to do it? Did he love it right away?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I think Paul Greengrass. I think he read Brad's script. And Paul Greengrass is a master filmmaker and creates a sense of. I mean, the Bourne movies he directed. Urgency, Urgency and Vibrance. And I think Matthew recognized both the stoicism of Kevin and the. He knew that the guy directing it was going to give it that pulsing.

[Marc Maron]

But it's a stoicism based in barely.

Keeping your shit together.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But. But that's. Yeah, that's a hero, right? Like, that's the definition. Ultimately, it's every story. Everybody has a story.

[Marc Maron]

No, I just. I thought it was just great.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah, I mean, I.

[Marc Maron]

Cause I.

When. A lot of times when I do these interviews, I gotta watch something. I do not know. I. I do not know what I'm getting into. You know, I Knew it was about. I knew the basic story. I didn't do any research on it. I just sat home last night by myself at 11 at night and watched that movie until 1 in the morning.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And then I. And then I'm early.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And no, no. But it's really compelling and it's a rare thing where you know that it's going to end good. But I already knew that. But the movie was still just menacing and human and intense. And I knew it's gonna be okay. But I'm like, oh my God.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

But I mean, we're. Almost every movie we know is gonna be okay. I mean, even in a Halloween movie, you know, it's gonna be okay with me, I guess.

[Marc Maron]

I guess.

But like I felt the urgency, you know, and I felt. And because of, you know, our own fears of. And the reality of fires was visceral to me because when you imagine and you were living close to it, the worst that can happen and it doesn't. And then when you depict it in a movie, the worst that can happen and do it with such detail. It was impactful.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah. And what was also as a producer, something very important to me is that we as a production team, Apple, Matthew America, Paul, Jason Blum, myself, that Brad Ingoldsby, that we also leave something of memory. So we also joined together and are completing the memorial. It's gonna be called Hope Plaza. It's gonna be a place in paradise for people to gather to honor the first responders, to honor the 85 people who lost their lives, to honor the community that is today thriving and surviving in a beautiful way. The way if you. I mean, I'm sure you've been into Altadena and you've certainly been in the Palisades. It's awful to see the amount of destruction and then you also see the vibrancy of new life.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Coming back, you know, I live in the mountains in Idaho. When you burn through old growth, it creates the heat actually creates new. It opens something new.

[Marc Maron]

So, yeah, great job.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Far out.

[Marc Maron]

Great talking to you.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Oh, it's it. That's it. Okay. So fun. I love, by the way, that you have this mid century modern ashtray that most people would have like displayed out kind of like as an objet d', art, like some sort of beautiful thing. And yours is filled with stuff like what is like, see, I'm a girl. Shotgun shell, empty plastic shotgun shells, hand sanitizer. Some ear. Some. Here's some ear. But I mean, I'm telling you this, this at a garage sale yeah, is, you know, 300 bucks at garage sale.

[Marc Maron]

Oddly, that ashtray was given to me in my early sobriety by a guy who was in the rooms with me, a Vietnam vet. And it had a lighter that matched it.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Wow.

[Marc Maron]

And I think he might have given it to me for an anniversary. I think his name was Paul. And, yeah, that's a sober representation. And I hadn't really thought about that in a while.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Yeah. But I've been staring at it.

[Marc Maron]

You need some of that hand sign. I'll give you a box. I'll give you a box.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

No, babe, babe, babe, seriously, I just. It was there, and it's that lavender.

[Marc Maron]

Y1 peppermint.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I know. Whatever. Thanks for having me here, Marc Merritt. I'm sorry, I'm not Christopher Guest.

[Marc Maron]

What are you talking about?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Just because I know he wants to.

[Marc Maron]

Come on the show, but are you guys gonna be in town? Is he in town?

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

I'm gonna give you his number. You call him. Just do it direct to him.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Okay.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Don't try to do through.

[Marc Maron]

It was great talking to you.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

And you. I've admired you for a long time.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I love you and thank you for the gifts.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

We are sober and we are sober family.

[Marc Maron]

Yes, we are. I just started going back to the secret meetings. I was a little out of it for a while.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

You know what? You're gonna have my number.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Okay.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

Goodbye.

[Marc Maron]

What a great person. What a fun conversation. I love her. The Last Bus is in theaters September 19th and on Apple TV on October 3rd. Hang out for a minute, folks. Hey, people. Tracy Letts will be back on the show. He's one of the guests I actually became friends with after he was on the first time. And you can listen to that. Initial appearance on episode 888. Now, see, now I'm hurt that, like, you know, none of the people that.

That you know who have been in.

Here have called you and said, oh, Tracy, you gotta.

You gotta go over to Mark's house.

Nobody's done that. In fact, it kind of goes the opposite direction. I go, why hasn't Mark had me on? He's had all my friends on.

Did you say that?

Yeah, sure. I've been trying to. I tried to get you on a long time ago, but I'm a fan of yours.

I.

You know, it goes back. I like what you do. I feel like I know you. I don't know why that is. Well, you're one of those people. We're roughly the same age.

We are. We.

Did you. We've had a long, slow steady climb.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I think, you know, you've got a.

Pulitzer, so, I mean, there's a big difference in our success rate. I. I'm hosting a podcast out of my garage, and you have a Pulitzer. Yeah, but you're on, like, 3D television shows and.

Yeah, but you're in movies.

I mean, come.

You just. I'm not going to do this with you because. Because you.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

You.

[Marc Maron]

You won.

You won that one. That's episode 888 with Tracy Letts available for free on whatever podcast platform you're using right now. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast. Here's some simple acoustic thing.

[Jamie Lee Curtis]

SA.

[Unknown Guest or Producer]

Sam.

[Marc Maron]

Boomer lives monkey and La.

Fonda cat Angels everywhere.