Jamie Lee Curtis. If Not Now, When, if Not Me, Who? Pivoting and Manifesting!
Summary
This SXSW session is a wide-ranging fireside chat with Jamie Lee Curtis, hosted by an interviewer (with SXSW Film Festival director Claudette Godfrey also present at the opening). At 67, Curtis reflects on her late-career transformation from actress to prolific producer, tracing the hinge moments that redirected her life. The conversation opens with warmth and humor — Curtis recounting how Everything Everywhere All at Once became her pivotal turning point. Shot in 38 days for $12 million in January 2020 in an abandoned Countrywide Savings and Loan campus in Simi Valley, the film wrapped the Friday before COVID shut the world down. Nobody on set believed it would become what it did; Curtis joined because her friend Russell Goldman called the Daniels 'geniuses,' Michelle Yeoh was attached, and it shot near her home. The film premiered at SXSW 2022 as opening night and went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards — a film that, as Curtis notes with delight, prominently featured a butt plug trophy she didn't recognize as such until the audience's laughter at SXSW revealed it to her.
The bulk of the conversation turns to Curtis's producing career, which she describes as something she always wanted but pursued seriously only in her late 50s after the Halloween trilogy reboot. Jason Blum gave her what he intended as a 'vanity deal,' expecting little — she had no producing credits and no cred. Instead, she cold-called him about a true-life NPR story of a school bus driver and teacher who saved 22 children during the 2018 Paradise Fire in California. That became a major Apple film (The Lost Bus / Paradise) starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera, nominated for an Academy Award for special effects. She also optioned Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta book series — 36 years of novels never previously adapted — and developed it into a TV series now running on Amazon Prime as the number one show worldwide, starring Nicole Kidman. Curtis plays Dorothy, Scarpetta's sister, a role she didn't plan to take until Nicole Kidman looked at her and said 'And you're in it.' Curtis's comet Pictures production company — named spontaneously while eating muesli in Arnold Schwarzenegger's trailer during True Lies — will see its logo on screen for the first time at SXSW with the premiere of 'Cinder,' starring Russell Goldman, which was also shot in 17 days (matching Halloween's original 1978 shoot length).
Curtis frames her entire producing philosophy around manifestation and the concept of 'life hinging on a couple of seconds you never see coming' — a quote she attributes to the novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics. She discusses how she spent 12 years trying to produce a film about Glenn Burke, the closeted Black gay baseball player credited with inventing the high five on October 2, 1977, at Dodger Stadium — ultimately recognizing that wasn't her story to tell and calling a then-unknown Ryan Coogler after seeing Fruitvale Station purely based on his filmmaking. She also recounts a near-miss with Princess Diana (missing her on set during Fish Called Wanda 2) and how Diana's death led her to the philosophical question — drawn from a Jack Kornfield/Joseph Goldstein meditation book — 'Did I learn to live wisely? Did I love well?' which became the core of her motivational speech she later gave to rooms of business executives.
The session closes with Curtis's pushback against AI as a substitute for human connection — 'They don't care about you. They never will care about you. They will not cry when you die' — alongside pointed remarks about DEI language being erased by the current political moment, the importance of the horror genre's evolving Academy recognition (she says she doesn't actually love horror, just the independent filmmaking spirit within it), and her genuine passion for storytelling, readers, and ideas as the engine beneath everything she does. Throughout, the session is punctuated by spontaneous moments — rearranging the interview chairs mid-session, pulling the audio technician on stage to demonstrate proper microphone placement, and confessing she may have invented Instagram five years before Instagram existed via a photography blog called iPhonies.
Key Takeaways
- •Everything Everywhere All at Once was shot in 38 days for $12 million in an abandoned office building in Simi Valley, CA — and wrapped the Friday before COVID shut the world down in March 2020. No one on set believed it would have the cultural impact it did.
- •Curtis first learned the butt plug trophy in the film was a butt plug when the audience's laughter at the SXSW 2022 premiere revealed it to her — she had pointed at it on camera without knowing what it was.
- •Curtis's producing career began after Jason Blum gave her what he intended as a 'vanity development deal' following the Halloween trilogy. She had no producing credits and no leverage except owing him two more Halloween films.
- •Her first real producing pitch to Blum was a true-life NPR story about a school bus driver and teacher who saved 22 school children during the 2018 Paradise Fire in California. That became a major Apple film (The Lost Bus) starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera, nominated for an Academy Award for visual effects.
- •Curtis optioned all of Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta novels — 36 years of books that had never been adapted — and developed them into a TV series now streaming on Amazon Prime starring Nicole Kidman as the first female medical examiner protagonist. As of the session, it is the number one show worldwide on the platform.
- •She met Nicole Kidman at the Oscars when Kidman walked up behind her and said: 'I see you. I see who you are. I see what you do. I see how you do it. And I really like it. And I want you to continue doing it.' Curtis responded: 'You're good too.'
- •Comet Pictures, her production company, was named in Arnold Schwarzenegger's trailer during True Lies — she saw an art deco comet sculpture in a Christie's auction catalog he had and said out loud that she'd use it as her production company logo one day. The actual logo turned out to be a photo of her daughter Ruby pointing at the sky on a full moon night.
- •Curtis spent 12 years trying to produce a film about Glenn Burke — the closeted Black gay baseball player who invented the high five at Dodger Stadium on October 2, 1977, when Dusty Baker hit his 30th home run. She ultimately recognized it wasn't her story to tell and cold-called a then-unknown Ryan Coogler after seeing Fruitvale Station purely based on his filmmaking talent.
Transcript
[cheering] Sorry, I just love you. >> Oh, keep it going for Jamie Lee Curtis and Clawudette. I mean, Claudette, [cheering and applause] >> there is no other. Thank you, honey. Thank you. Thank keep standing for her. I mean, >> and apparently I smell good. That's literally Claudet just said, "And you smell good." >> She does smell good. I can attest to that. I've been wearing the same cologne since I was 18 years old. >> What is it? >> It's Oscar Delarenta. It's just It's just the classic Oscar D...
