Jamie Lee Curtis Felt ‘Quite Isolated’ Filming ‘Knives Out’: A ‘Very Tough Time’ on Set
Jamie Lee Curtis may be the iconic scream queen, but she quickly became a lonely woman on set for “Knives Out.”
Rian Johnson’s 2019 mystery film was shot in Massachusetts, and while Curtis bonded with the all-star cast including Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Christopher Plummer, and Daniel Craig, the “Halloween Ends” star recently revealed that she was kept in the dark and “had no idea” about the central mystery would play out onscreen.
“I was actually quite isolated,” Curtis told Entertainment Weekly. “I was living in this weird hotel by myself, and a lot of the movie, I’m not in. I was alone for a lot and it was a very tough time.”
She added, “It turned out to be this fantastic movie. I would never have known that the movie we were making was the movie that we made. 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. We’d just do our little thing and then go home. It was just such a delightful surprise.”
The success of “Knives Out” led to Johnson inking a deal for at least two more films for Netflix, with sequel “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” streaming December 23, and marking a new level of stardom for Curtis, who went on to co-star in the viral hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
“I remember when they wanted me to go to CinemaCon with ‘Knives Out,’ I was like, they want me to go to CinemaCon?” Curtis said. “They don’t want all those other people to go to CinemaCon? Because I really felt like I was this tiny, tiny, delicious but tiny little part of the puzzle. It just was so fun to actually become its head cheerleader. I’m a bit of a weapon of mass promotion and I got behind that one in a big way, because it was so fun and great and people loved it.”
Much like Curtis feeling isolated on set for the first film, the “Knives Out” sequel was written and filmed during the COVID-19 pandemic, with writer-director Johnson telling Netflix’s Tudum that he penned the script while in lockdown.
“I was writing [‘Glass Onion’] during the lockdown of 2020, and I wanted to be on a beach vacation more than anything,” Johnson said. “So much of why I’m so into making these is that they just do bring me an intense amount of joy. Working with Daniel [Craig] in this genre and having fun with it and the humor, getting to work with a new group of actors every time, everything about it just brings me happiness.”