The Drew Barrymore Show: “Ella McCay” Star Jamie Lee Curtis

"Ella McCay" Star Jamie Lee Curtis

Air Date: Thursday, December 18^th

Must Include Tune In

Photo Credit: The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean

Download Photos Here

Videos:

Jamie Lee Curtis on Waiting to Come on Drew's Comfort Couch & Finding Her Truth When She Got Sober

https://app.cimediacloud.com/r/n9ryTwXkywU6Jamie: By the way, I've been waiting a long time to be on your comfort, compassion, caring couch. That's what this is, don't you think it's just become this sort of center of comfort and compassion and you lean in and people lean into you.

Drew: That means so much to me coming from you.

Jamie: That's what this is.

Drew: That means so much to me coming from you because I truly believe everything you say.

I've never said that to another human being before, which is a lot to unpack in another situation, but.

Jamie: I'll give you a number.

Drew: OK, please. Thank you. 1-800 trust issues. I think that I've always loved the no BS truth tellers, the tough lovers, the people who give it to you straight, the people who say it like it is.

Jamie: That's taken a minute.

Drew: Did it take a minute?

Jamie: Of course it took a minute. Oh, I was terrified. I couldn't have told the truth at the beginning. I just, it's not possible because the truth is scary, right? Because the truth means, you know, I'm sure you are aware of this book, Are You Mad at Me? This whole idea of fawning, right? So there's the fight, flight, freeze. But there's a 4th. It's fawning, which is sort of people pleasing, which is sort of like being, incredibly, this would look like fawning if this wasn't real, do you know what I mean? And I've done a bit of that. I did a bit of that early on in my, in my life, and so I've, it's taken me a long time to be able to tell the truth and sit in the truth and own it and you know, I mean, it takes courage. I got sober, that helped, but you know, it's also just life, right? The process of life.

Drew: Did it get to a point ever where you thought nothing is worse than holding it? I'll risk the truth and whatever the consequences are of it.

Jamie: Well, that's what getting sober is, I think that's the, it's like the greatest act of self-love that someone can do is to acknowledge it and so I don't, it was so stigmatizing that it was a prison for people and I do believe that that gesture of self-love of believing that you deserve to live, even if it means acknowledging you know, a dependence on something or past bad behavior that's under the lash of addiction and alcoholism that you did certain things, do you know what I mean? I think there's a reckoning, but it's self-love ultimately, at the end of the day.

Jamie Lee on Her Mom Saying No To Auditioning for "The Exorcist" & Giving Her a Childhood Instead

https://app.cimediacloud.com/r/w8dqxZ1KQbEj
Jamie: This personality was my personality at you know, since birth, I mean, I've been this person, a little obnoxious and cute and everything, and Ray Stark was the producer of 'The Exorcist' was a very good friend of my mother's, and he called my mom and said, 'Hey, I'm producing the movie of the book, The Exorcist. Will you let Jamie audition for it?' and at the time I was probably 12 and like cute and kind of sassy and I had some personality and I'm sure he saw me at a party and was like oh she'd be funny and my mother said no. No my mom really wanted me to have, thank God, a childhood, which I understand you didn't get, you didn't get that option.

Drew: No, I didn't.

Jamie: And people didn't step in and say no, she will have a childhood, she will have protection.

Yes, exactly, and I understand and you are here on your compassion, comfort couch care doing this, leaning in to people with your puppy. And you've manifested now a life of compassion, care, and leaning in. Partly because you didn't get it and you get to give it as a gift to other people and so I mean it's good. I mean it is what you do and by the way, how about like spending 15 years doing this, listening to people, talking to people, bringing out stories, well, guess what?

Drew: I don't think it's happening. You think so?

Jamie: Don't y'all think it's happening? I think it's happening.

Drew on the Pressure She Experienced as a Kid with Aesthetics & How Jamie Lee Curtis Helped Her

https://app.cimediacloud.com/r/YnnqVBr7WteCJamie: Age happens. Oh, it's a total privilege, but it, you know, it's also a thing.

Drew: I liked that you have advocated though for, not just a natural approach, but like a be confident in who you are and where you are approach because and I've never talked about this before, but I had so much pressure as a kid with vanity and you just think, well, why would a kid have an issue with vanity because you're just a kid, you know, you don't even barely go into hair and makeup they kind of fluff you up and send you out, but There was so much you're, you're not old, you're not young, you're not thin, you're not heavy, you're not blonde enough, you're not this and a lot of that was coming from my own inner circle and so it did such a number on me that I thought, you know what? In the famous words of Jamie Lee Curtis, this. I won't do this. I won't subscribe to your obsession with aesthetics and so what I did was spend the rest of my life, including now, going, I'm not gonna do it. I won't do it. I'm going to take the lessons. And whatever happens happens and I just want to take that pressure off of myself.

Jamie Lee Curtis on Her Love Story with Her Husband of 41 Years Christopher Guest and Knowing She'd Marry Him After Seeing Him in a Magazine

https://app.cimediacloud.com/r/FYdHeqEoZG5D

Drew: Did you see a picture of your husband in a magazine?

Jamie: I did, I did. I was, single, it was April of 1984. I was sitting on a couch, with my friend Deborah Hill who wrote and produced 'Halloween.' We were looking at Rolling Stone. It was the issue with Cyndi Lauper on the cover with her skirt going one way and her body going the other, and, I opened the magazine and there were a picture of three men with their arms around each other like that.

Drew: Was it 'Spinal Tap?'

Jamie: But it was just them in like regular clothes with their like shirts rolled up and just like, and there was a guy on the end and I went to Deborah Hill, 'Oh. Interesting. I'm gonna marry that guy.' she said, 'Who?' I said, 'That one right there.' She goes, 'Oh yeah, he's an actor. His name is Chris Guest. I tried to put him in a movie. He's with your agents.' And I was like, oh, and then the next page, of course, was them in 'Spinal Tap' gear and leather and, you know, tongues out and things. Anyway, I called his agent, left my number with him, and then Chris did not call me. And I dated somebody else who wanted to date me. That was not a romance for me. Kind of two months went by. I took that person to the airport because they were going on a trip. And I left the airport, went back to West Hollywood, picked up Melanie Griffith and her then husband Steven Bauer.

Drew: Oh my God, of course.

Jamie: And we went to Hugo's on Santa Monica Boulevard still there, and I sat down at a table and where this beautiful woman in the blue sweater is sitting, Chris was sitting two tables away facing me, and, will you just wave with your hand, like that, and I went like this. And then I was like oh god, there's this guy. I left my number and he never called me and then he got up to leave. Now would you please stand up and shrug your shoulders? Sorry, shrug your shoulders and now just do the gesture of bye OK? And that's it and then he left thank you and then I thank you. Thank you your name? Yeah, what's your name? Go on, Christopher shrugged his shoulders, went like this, but then I shrugged my shoulders and went like this, and he left, but then he called me the next day. That date was June 28th, 1984. We went out July 2nd. He was leaving for a year on 'Saturday Night Live' August 8th. I was starting the movie 'Perfect' in Los Angeles August 10th. 'Saturday Night Live' is in New York. I was in Los Angeles. So we are now opposite coasts. We went back and forth every weekend. We got engaged September 13th.

Wait, and we got married December 18th. And 41 years later.