VARIETY Power of Women Cover: Jamie Lee Curtis on Backlash, Princess Diana, and More

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In a new Power of Women cover story for VARIETY, Hollywood legend Jamie Lee Curtis speaks with Senior Editor and veteran profile writer Trish Deitch about backlash she received, if she is careful as a public figure, Princess Diana, her teenage years, her 47-year career, getting fired, and more. 

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Jamie Lee Curtis on if she has to be careful as a public figure:

“I don’t have to be careful,” she says sharply. “If I was careful, I wouldn’t have told you any of what I just told you. I would have just said, ‘Hi, welcome. I baked you banana bread. Here’s my dog. Here’s my house, blah, blah, blah. What do you want to know?’ I can’t not be who I am in the moment I am.”

On the letter Princess Diana wrote back to her after a missed on-set meeting:

“Diana wrote back,” Curtis says today from her porch overlooking a lush Santa Monica canyon. “She was like, ‘Totally get it: Been there, done that. I admire you too. It’d be nice to meet you someday.” Curtis barely pauses and says, “She died a year later.”

On her life:

“Talk about waking up feeling gratitude and grateful for a life,” Curtis says. “How the fuck did I end up here?” she says, gesturing to the green treetops and flawless blue sky before her. “I was in a one-bedroom stucco apartment on Mary Ellen Avenue, and now I’m all of a sudden here with you.”

On herself as a teenager:

“I was kind of a weirdo. I was” — she points to herself — “this girl at 16, full of energy and personality. But I had no intelligence. You know, I wasn’t an athlete, I wasn’t in the plays. And I became an actor by accident.”

On getting fired from one of her early roles, “Operation Petticoat”:

“If I hadn’t gotten fired,” Curtis says, “I would have never auditioned for ‘Halloween,’ which then became something important, right? And then the rest of my life happened.”

[Photo Credit:  Sami Drasin for Variety]

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