Jamie Lee Curtis Didn’t Think Knives Out Would Work
Jamie Lee Curtis confesses that she wasn't all that confident in the success of the runaway hit Knives Out.
In spite of delivering a wonderful performance in the runaway whodunnit, Jamie Lee Curtis of Halloween fame apparently didn’t have a lot of confidence in the success of 2019’s Knives Out. While she didn’t say anything necessarily damning about her first impressions of the flick when speaking to Entertainment Weekly recently, she did say the finished product was “such a delightful surprise.”
Jamie Lee Curtis explained to EW that she was fairly isolated while filming Rian Johnson’s mystery thriller. “I was living in this weird hotel by myself, and a lot of the movie, I’m not in,” Curtis recalled. “I was alone for a lot and it was a very tough time.”
“I would never have known that the movie we were making was the movie that we made,” Jamie Lee Curtis continued. “It wasn’t evident to me, because Rian was so specific in his methodology, and it’s not like we’re all watching monitors and seeing all the work. We had no idea.”
Jamie Lee Curtis wound up being one of the biggest promoters of Knives Out, though she says she was surprised that she was the one tapped to market the film. “I remember when they wanted me to go to CinemaCon with Knives Out, I was like, they want me to go to CinemaCon?” Curtis recalled. She went on to say she saw herself as “this tiny, tiny, delicious but tiny little part of the puzzle.
Considering the incredible cast at play in Knives Out, the actress’ initial hesitancy may not seem all that surprising.
Jamie Lee Curtis plays the no-nonsense Linda Drysdale in Knives Out–eldest daughter to the victim, best-selling crime novelist Harlan Thrombey played by the late, great Christopher Plummer. Don Johnson of Miami Vice fame plays her husband Richard. They’re joined by a marvelous cast that includes Daniel Craig (No Time to Die) as the famous private detective Benoit Blanc, Chris Evans (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) as the victim’s spoiled grandson Ransom, Michael Shannon (Man of Steel) as Harlan’s youngest son Walt, and Ana de Armas (Blonde) as the murdered novelist’s devoted nurse Marta.
Speaking of Ana de Armas, that reminds us of why every time Jamie Lee Curtis opens her mouth about Knives Out, you get the sense maybe she should stop talking about Knives Out. The Scream Queen confessed in July that when she met De Armas, Curtis thought it was her first Hollywood feature in spite of De Armas having already appeared in projects like Blade Runner 2049, War Dogs, and opposite Keanu Reeves in Knock Knock. Curtis tried to take De Armas under her proverbial wing and introduce her to other celebrities like Steven Spielberg and Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, only to learn De Armas was already acquainted.
Sadly, since Jamie Lee Curtis’s character had only one father to kill, she won’t be part of the upcoming sequel Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. But she will soon return to her most famous role in Halloween Ends which–according to the film’s promotion–everyone involved in the franchise is pretending is the last one.
