Jamie Lee Curtis chokes up remembering first time she met Nicole Kidman on the Oscars: ‘Are you kidding me?’

Jamie Lee Curtis remembers the primary time she met Nicole Kidman — and it nonetheless brings tears to her eyes.

The Oscar-winning All the things In every single place All at As soon as actress, who stars with Kidman within the new Prime Video collection Scarpetta, recalled assembly her throughout a dialog with Newsweek's H. Alan Scott at SXSW in Austin on Saturday.

Curtis defined that they linked up at an Academy Awards ceremony the place the Freaky Friday star was set to current the In Memoriam tribute to Betty White, who died in December 2021. (Curtis mentioned the encounter occurred on the 2021 Oscars in a latest Tonight Present interview, however the Betty White tribute was on the 2022 Oscars.)

"It was throughout COVID, once we had been at cafe tables, and I used to be sitting at a bit of desk, and my publicist and good friend Heidi was sitting with me earlier than the present," Curtis mentioned on the SXSW panel. "Ten minutes earlier than the present started, my tablemate hadn't arrived but. Heidi was sitting there and she or he mentioned, 'Jamie, someone needs to speak to you.' And I mentioned, 'What do you imply?'"

Spinning round in her seat on the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Curtis was stunned to see Kidman behind her. "Standing right here was Nicole Kidman together with her fingers by her sides — simply standing behind my chair. And I went … 'Good day, Nicole Kidman,' and she or he moved, and we shook fingers."

Curtis turned visibly emotional, holding again tears as she shared Kidman's first actual phrases to her. "That is what Nicole Kidman mentioned to me," she started, choking up. "Virtually makes me cry saying it. She mentioned, 'I see you. I see who you’re. I see what you do. I see the way you do it. And I actually prefer it, and I would like you to proceed doing it.'"

The Halloween star was flabbergasted. "Nicole f—ing Kidman! Are you kidding me?" she mentioned. "She was saying that to me, on the Oscars, the place she was a nominee! After which she walked away. That was how I met her."

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Through the SXSW panel, Curtis additionally defined that she had initially solely deliberate to supply Scarpetta and had no intention to behave in it. "I wanna be a producer," she mentioned. "I wanna write checks. I don't wanna placed on make-up. I wanna take a look at dailies and inform individuals they did nice. I wanna do workforce constructing. And I actually didn't wish to be in an [hourlong] drama TV present, as a result of the hours are terrible."

Nevertheless, when Kidman got interested within the collection, Curtis instantly reconsidered. "And when Nicole Kidman appears to be like at you with these eyes and says, 'You're in it?' you say, 'Sure, queen!'" she mentioned. "'Sure, in fact I'm in it. In fact I'm in it! Why else would I produce it?' After which we tried to scramble to determine what I’d play."

Primarily based on Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta collection, which kicked off with the 1990 novel Postmortem, the brand new present stars Kidman as health worker Kay Scarpetta and Curtis as Kay's sister, Dorothy.

Curtis described the dynamic between the fictional siblings in a brand new interview with Leisure Weekly. "She's a man-eater," the Knives Out actress mentioned of her character. "However what's fascinating is Dorothy and Kay each misplaced their father to homicide, and Kay spends the remainder of her life finding out homicide and attempting to reverse it, attempting to grasp it, attempting to determine what she will study from it so it by no means occurs once more."

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She continued, "Dorothy has simply taken the alternative path, mainly saying, 'I've recognized dying very early, so deliver it f—ing on.' She goes to devour the world, as a result of she already is aware of that dying is coming for her, as a result of it got here for her father."

Scarpetta is streaming now on Prime Video.

Extra reporting by Tiffany Kelly.

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