Born into Hollywood royalty (mom and dad are Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis) and married to the British kind (Christopher Guest, hereditary lord and creator of the Best In Show and Waiting For Guffman movies), Jamie Lee Curtis tries to keep her life on an even keel. Happy to write her children's books and act every now and then, she goes around like she never reigned herself as the Halloween scream queen and bodacious star of such hits as True Lies and A Fish Called Wanda. In John Boorman's adaptation of John le Carré's The Tailor Of Panama, Curtis plays your typical American housewife -albeit in the intrigue-laden Canal Zone. Married to Geoffrey Rush's former cockney criminal who has re-invented himself as the Savile Row suitmaker to the Central American capital's corrupt elite, she's also romanced by Pierce Brosnan's wicked and amoral MI5er.
How did you get involved with this movie?
I was at a doll signing. One of the books I've written has a companion doll that was put out by Alexander. I was at the launch at FAO Schwartz in New York, and John was in the throng of people watching me sign these dolls. Then I heard, "So, do you want to make a movie?" He was there getting toys for his three children, my godchildren.
Besides god-nepotism, why do you think he wanted you for the role?
Ultimately, what's important is that we created a real family. John's known me for a long time, we were jurors at the Cannes Film Festival together, and I think he knows me as a mom and as a wife. My job was to make it look like we had been married for 18 years, show that wonderful familiarity that people have in the way they touch, the way they make love, the way that they are together. Plus, she's the moral compass of the movie. What she represents is what he has to lose.
That come naturally?
Even though I may have gotten attention for kind of being flamboyant at times, I am actually quite moral. I'm pretty serious, and the focus of my life is my husband, my children. I'm not interested in another life.
Nevertheless, you have steamy scenes with both of your leading men in this.
I wouldn't call them steamy. There's one scene of domestic sex, but it's domestic. What's fabulous about it is the kind of ease these two people have with each other. Whereas in the scene with Pierce, which is so good, there's nothing going on, but it's below the water so you can't see what's happening. It's an attempted seduction.
Is it tougher to do love scenes than comedy?
It's harder to do comedy because I'm an easy laugher. I'm somewhat infamous for blowing great moments of comedy because I'm laughing. And I have every trick in the book to stop laughing, including putting thumbtacks in my shoes.
You seem to be concentrating more on writing these days.
I write books all the time. The thing about writing children's books is that you have the kind of impulse I call vomiting. It comes out in that manner, in the sense that it's kind of like a purging. Then there's an adjustment period where you tinker with it. But it's a very quick, spontaneous thing that initially happens.
We keep hearing talk of a True Lies sequel. Think it'll happen?
I believe it will, but I have yet to be told a start date or where to show up. So until I am, I can only say that we've talked about it, but, I think, at some point it gets too late. There is some past due date, and we haven't hit it yet. But I'm getting a little mouldy, know what I mean?
