On My Screen: Jamie Lee Curtis Reveals How She Was Cast On ‘The Bear’ & How ‘Columbo’ Changed Her Life (2024)

Jamie Lee Curtis just knew she would be in The Bear, long before she got the part of Donna Berzatto, the alcoholic, unstable mother of the restauranteur siblings at the show’s center. While watching Season 1, Curtis had an eerie feeling. “I went, ‘I’m going to play her.’ I swear,” she says. And then she got the call. “My agent said, ‘You’ve been offered a part on The Bear.’” Curtis called the show’s creator, Christopher Storer. “I said, ‘What do you want her hair to look like?’ He sent me a picture of Monica Vitti. I said, ‘What do you want her nails to look like?’ He sent me a picture of the Desperate Housewives of New York.” Now, in the midst of shooting the much-anticipated sequel to fan favorite Freaky Friday, Curtis details how Peter Falk made her famous, her best advice, and why Lip Sync Battle missed their shot when they didn’t think to cast her.

The Job That Got Me Started
I was an accidental actor. I was never going to be an actor, I was going to be a cop. I had three lines on an episode of Columbo as a grumpy waitress. Columbo comes into a restaurant with his coat all askew and his hair all crazy, and he’s holding a donut. The waitress says, “You can’t eat that here.” And he says, “OK,” and hands her the donut. She says, “Have you decided yet?” And he goes, “Yes, I’ll have a donut.” A month later, I’m walking down the street, and somebody says, “Hey, I saw you on The Tonight Show.” Peter Falk had brought that clip on the show. So, my second ever job in showbusiness, I was on The Tonight Show.

The Best Advice I Ever Received
I’m sober 25 years and [I’ve learned] advice is a form of hostility. Advice is somehow saying to someone, “I have a better idea than you.” And I have felt that many, many, many times when people have offered advice. That doesn’t mean that I can’t say to you, “What do you think I should do here?” That is a very specific question that you can answer. But the best advice is, “Don’t give it.” The way I have adjusted it is I offer ‘suggestions’. My new favorite is, “Can I give you feedback?” But that ultimately is some form of control and some hubris and ego on my part.

My First TV Lesson
Show up early. I have a production company, and whenever we have a Zoom, if we’re going to Zoom with Amazon, or we’re going to Zoom with Audible, our rule is we show up 15 minutes before. If it’s scheduled for 10 am, at 9:45 am, Comet, my company, we’re on, and we do 15 minutes together before anybody else shows up. It’s my rule.

The Shows That Make Me Cry
Everything makes me cry. I am just not a trained person. By the way, to say you’re untrained doesn’t mean you’re not thoughtful. I’m super thoughtful. I do my homework. I listen to music and watch movies and wear perfumes of the characters I’m playing. Donna’s is Shalimar, by the way. There was a TV show called My Favorite Martian. Ray Walston played a Martian, and he had these little antenna. Well, my antenna are these frequency receptors, and I am highly aware. I am highly attuned emotionally, and I cry a lot because I am moved by life. I’m just moved by the human experience.

The Most Fun I’ve Had On Set
I found out I was going to do the first Freaky Friday on a Thursday, and I was shooting Monday. I had a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old at home, and I was playing a 15-year-old and a 45-year-old in the movie. That was just one of those movies where you just had to just let go of everything and just go, “OK, who am I today? OK, wait, what do I do?” So that was really fun.

My Most Quoted Role
Well, “Make good choices” is the only line I’ve ever improvised in my life, and it became a banner for Freaky Friday. Donna in The Bear has that incredibly beautiful line where she says, “I make things beautiful for them. No one makes anything beautiful for me.” That feeling of being unseen, and yet so much effort is put into your life, and it isn’t responded back. Or it is, but she just can’t see it. I’ve had a lot of people say that. That line in particular really got them.

The Character That’s Most Like Me
Maybe Tess, in Freaky Friday. I’m sort of like her a little bit. I’m a weirdo. But I know parts of everyone [I’ve played]. Even in Everything Everywhere All at Once I know Deirdre Beaubeirdre. I’ve met women who’ve been overlooked. I’ve met women who use their job for power. It’s the only power they get. Nowhere else in the world do they get any recognition. She had to have really beautiful nails because I decided that it was the one time a week that someone touched her. And I’m sure her manicurist, excuse my French, couldn’t give a sh*t about Deirdre.

My Guilty Pleasure
My husband and I are married 40 years. We like to watch a good show. We like to get involved in something and we both loved watching [my friend] Jodie [Foster]’s show True Detective: Night Country. But I really found my guilty pleasure when we were shooting a movie in a closed Walgreens. I said, “Is there a Walgreens employee here that can open a register?” And I went and discovered Bit-O-Honey candy. It’s probably awful for you, but I bought a few boxes. Talk about a guilty pleasure.

My Karaoke Playlist
I cannot sing. I can lip-sync like a bitch though. Fricking Lip Sync Battle, you missed your shot, baby, because I’ve been lip syncing forever because I can’t sing. Lindsay Lohan and I, when we were making the original Freaky Friday, we were stuck on a closed freeway for a driving shot. We had a cassette player in the car, and we were learning the Clipse rap from the Justin Timberlake song “Like I Love You”. She and I were writing down the lyrics to the rap, and then I think I rapped it on Jay Leno.