Jamie Lee Curtis is famously one of many well-known performers who has one Oscar nomination. It’s crazy to think the Hollywood vet and icon only has one nom, and win, from the Academy. What’s crazier is that Questlove projected that she would take home the award that night when no one else said she would for the zany part she played in the everything bagel-riddled multiverse.
Curtis joined The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to talk about her upcoming 2025 movie schedule releases, The Last Showgirl and Freakier Friday. Along with sharing about the new features, the Halloween star recalled the 2022 force that is Everything Everywhere All At Once and her path to winning. She set the context of her relationship with the film, which is one of the many movies you can watch over and over, how she went to a screening and reception in NYC and saw Questlove was there. She said:
So I was in this wonderful movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is fantastic. And, obviously, Michelle Yeoh, Ke [Huy Quan] were great, and I’d seen the movie, and the movie was great and the Daniels, and the movie is great. And I have a great part, a small but great part. But I just never thought about a word of it. And I went to a screening in New York City, honest to God truth … and Questlove was in the audience. And, at the end, there was a reception, and it was in the middle of Covid, kind of. And the word reception, to me, is just like germ bucket. You don’t go to the reception, because it’s all high voices and wine breath.
Her frankness and down-to-earth explanations of working on the movie, seeing it with a live audience and the reception that follows is just too perfect. The Freaky Friday alum leaves it all out on the table, as she does regardless of acclaim since The Roots’ drummer was right about Curtis’ emotional surprise Oscar win.
The True Lies actress then expanded into Questlove’s timely prediction and how he was the one who made her realize it could be possible.
So, instead of that, I was standing near the door, and Questlove was there. And I was just about to leave, and somehow, I turned, and there he was. And he looked at me and said – I’d never met him … He looked at me and said, ‘Dust off your mantle.’ And I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Dust off your mantle.’ And I looked at him, and I was like, ‘Oh, shut up! Stop It!’ … And I remember I got in the car, and it was the only time where I went, ‘What?’ You know how Leonard Cohen talked about the crack that let the light in? You let the light in for me. And I never thought it would happen, and then of course, on the night itself, I really didn’t think it was gonna happen. And neither did anybody else, and I won’t say anything. But Questlove predicted, and – I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
What a bonkers story between the two and what great foresight The Tonight Show drummer had. We all knew it was a matter of time, with so many best JLC movies to choose from but who knew it’d be the one with her in hot dog fingers? The Daniels film absolutely deserved all the attention and success it garnered that year, the cast and crew included.
Wild stories that lead to great outcomes like taking home the Oscar make them all the better. The saga between Questlove predicting Jamie Lee Curtis winning for Everything Everywhere All At Once is absolutely incredible.
Watch Jamie Lee Curtis in her Oscar-winning role in Everything Everywhere All At Once with a Max subscription. The Last Showgirl is playing in theaters now.