Jamie Lee Curtis has won an Emmy for her work on “The Bear.”
Creative Arts Emmys: Night Two - Updating Live
The actress who has a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award, can add the Emmy to her accolades after taking home the award Sunday for best guest actress in a comedy for her work on the hit FX show.
Speaking backstage in the Creative Arts Emmys press room after her win, Curtis was characteristically blunt and grateful for the opportunities she’s enjoyed amid the content boom of the past decade.
“I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I’ve been an actor since I was 19. I’m 65. I sold yogurt that makes you shit for seven years, and I just never thought in my life that I would get to do work at this level, depth and complexity and intelligence,” Curtis said. “It’s just been the thrill of my creative life these last couple years that I get these opportunities, so I’m humble and incredibly grateful.”
On “The Bear,” she played Donna Berzatto, the alcoholic mother of Carmy, Sugar and Mikey, in two episodes from Season 2. She is originally introduced in “Fishes,” a flashback episode chronicling the events of a family Christmas dinner five years prior to the show’s original timeline.
With her win, Curtis is halfway to EGOT status, having won a supporting actress Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Asked how she planned to achieve the elusive Tony, Curtis joked, she couldn’t “sing at all and I’ve never been on a stage. I’ve never done a play, and I don’t stay up late.” Curtis added, “I’m just not sure I would do so well in the theater, since you go to bed so late. But you know what, I never thought any of this was going to be possible in my life at all. I’m totally a late bloomer.”
She also talked about her latest film , “The Last Showgirl” in which she plays a Las Vegas cocktail waitress. The film stars Pamela Anderson as a 30-year veteran dancer, who toils in sequins in the last remaining traditional floor show in the city.
In the press room, Curtis was asked about a social media post in which she wrote, “The Last Showgirl is a requiem for any woman who has ever been underestimated because of her beauty, her choices, or her art (so, essentially, every woman ever to exist).” Asked why that quote resonated with her, she said the words had been written by a woman. Taking a long pause, Curtis said, “I think we’re all underestimated. And as actors, we just hustle for a job.”
Curtis pointed to her body of work which includes over 85 credits for films such as “Freaky Friday” and “Halloween.” “Look at my career, I’ve done a lot of the weird stuff because I just love the process.”
Creative Arts Emmy Awards Night 1: 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Jim Henson Idea Man' Dominate, Angela Bassett Gets Emotional
Despite her perseverance in the industry, Curtis talked about the downside to working. “This is an industry filled with rejection. You are rejected every day when you’re an actor.”
“That review for this little movie, ‘The Last Showgirl’ about Pamela Anderson’s character, Shelley; this requiem about women and what we’ve had to sacrifice in our lives in order to be women, working women. It’s a beautiful homage to all of the women, to every single woman sitting here, including yourself, as well as myself and the women, the legions of women who have come before me.”
She also paid homage to actress Gena Rowlands who died in August. Curtis, who previously called Rowlands “a guide ,” said, “Donna only exists really because of Gena Rowlands and the legions of women before me who’ve paved this path of truth and honesty and courage and perseverance and trust and I’m just honored to be one of all of you.”
Curtis was previously nominated for lead actress in a miniseries or movie for the 1998 CBS telepic “Nicholas’ Gift.”
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays Richie on “The Bear,” raved about Curtis’ performance in a recent interview with Variety . “Jamie Lee was so prepared, and she had such an active job to do that week,” Moss-Bachrach said. “It’s so hard to show up as a guest on somebody else’s set and own it like Jamie Lee did. It’s really remarkable. I can’t overstate how impressed I was with the work and preparation she did.”
Curtis beat Olivia Colman (“The Bear”), Kaitlin Olson (“Hacks”), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“Only Murders in the Building”), Maya Rudolph (“Saturday Night Live”) and Kristen Wiig (“Saturday Night Live”) who were also nominated in the category.
“The Bear” premiered on June 23, 2022. Season 3 premiered on June 26.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Drink of Choice at the 2024 Emmys? A Whisky Espresso Martini
Local News
