Jamie Lee Curtis wants to read her book to your kid
Jamie Lee Curtis has had many acts in her career. She started as a scream queen and is currently on Scream Queens, returning to Fox at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Jamie Lee Curtis has had many acts in her career. She started as a scream queen and is currently on Scream Queens, returning to Fox at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
In addition to starring in comedy classics such as the Philadelphia-shot Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda, Curtis is also a children's author. She'll be at the Free Library of Philadelphia on Sunday to read from her latest book, This is Me: A Story of Who We Are & Where We Came From.
Curtis spoke via phone - while getting a manicure to play her Scream Queens character Dean Munch - about the secret sauce of her work and why Philadelphia means freedom to her.
Did you always want to write?
No, I didn't know I was going to write a book 26 years ago, before I wrote it. The next thing I know, I wrote a book. If something I've written makes me laugh or cry, I know it's a book. I know I did something that moved me. It wasn't a conceit of mine to have that be the end result. Nothing I've ever done has had an agenda, from my political work to my marriage to my career.
Do you prefer to make yourself laugh or cry?
Equal. My brilliant writing partner, Laura Cornell, who is the illustrator, I chose her specifically when I saw her work 29 years ago from a book called Annie Bananie that was given to my daughter when she was born. These illustrations made me laugh because her point of view on the world was mine, because it was funny. The books I grew up with were Tom and Jane Go to Wherever, or, like, Dick and Jane Go to a Bris. They do something and they look perfect and their dresses don't have stains on them. Her illustrations looked to me the way the world looked: uneven, mismatched, rough-hewn.
Why does your partnership work so well?
We barely know each other, and we appreciate each other's gifts. I'm the emotional base, and she's the humorous high notes. [In This is Me], in the middle of that classroom, Laura Cornell decided there should be a terrarium filled with pet snails that has opened and they're all over the classroom. What that represents politically, emotionally, spiritually, is what this book is about, it's about people leaving their homes to go somewhere else with, excuse the pun, just the shells on their backs.
You're always experiencing new details.
What you just hit on, that's the secret sauce of the Curtis-Cornell collection. You have to write music for children, and you have to write music for the adults reading the books. The goal of these books, and writing for children, is this triangulation, this triumvirate of connection between an adult holding the book, the child on the adult's lap, and the book as the fulcrum. That's sacred. That's been happening since the written word was etched in stone.
At your readings, half the audience knows you as an actor, the other half knows you as a nice lady reading a book.
It's a really beautiful difference. I talk to kids about being creative, and then I do a baby-crying imitation, and they're so freaked out by that they are in the palm of my hand.
I've been around a very long time, so I have a whole host of different fans. I have girl fans because of Freaky Friday or You Again. Then I have boy fans because of horror movies. Then their fathers are happy to know me because they saw me naked when I was 19 and cute. Then there's a whole new generation who know me from [Scream Queens].
I feel blessed and satisfied. Don't think for a second that I don't get it. If people see bruises on my arm at the book signing, it's because I'm pinching myself that at 58 I'm doing a book signing the same week my TV series comes out, that I'm married, that my kids are grown.
You're returning to the setting of Trading Places. What do you think when you think Philadelphia?
I didn't spend a lot of time there, but I do remember feeling the history, the freedom. It's a big issue in this election, service to this country, service to the ideals of this country, dedication, sacrifice. We are a country of sacrifice. Your city represents that to me. I really do think it's a choice, for me, between experience and sacrifice, and greed and lies. I'm very excited to be with you and feel what that felt like again. There's a lot of freedom in your city.
Jamie Lee Curtis, 2 p.m. Sunday, Free Library of Philadelphia, Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine St. Free, 215-567-4341, .