Jamie Lee Curtis Shunned Prosthetics for ‘Real’ Portrayal of IRS Inspector in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’
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Jamie Lee Curtis is letting it all hang out in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — literally.
In the latest film from writer-director duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, which opens the 2022 SXSW Festival March 11, Curtis opted not to wear any body prosthetics to play “weird” IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdra. The sci-fi action comedy stars Michelle Yeoh as the stressed-out manager of a Los Angeles laundromat who is enlisted to defeat an evil force, and complete her taxes while doing it.
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“Immediately after signing up, [Curtis] would text us photos of weird outfits and weird hairdos,” Scheinert told Entertainment Weekly. “There was one photo of an IRS auditor that Dan Kwan had found online — I mean, maybe she worked in a DMV, I don’t know — but this one photo, Jamie was like, ‘That’s incredible, please let me be her — please, please, please, please.’ And that photo became the reference for the hairdo and the outfit.”
Kwan added, “Everyone assumes that her belly in the movie is a prosthetic, but it’s actually her real belly. She was grateful that she was allowed to just let it out.”
Curtis explained that she “just wanted to be truthful to this woman” as her alter ego.
“In the world, there is an industry — a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar industry — about hiding things. Concealers. Body-shapers. Fillers. Procedures. Clothing. Hair accessories. Hair products. Everything to conceal the reality of who we are,” Curtis said. “And my instruction to everybody was: I want there to be no concealing of anything.”
Curtis continued, “I’ve been sucking my stomach in since I was 11, when you start being conscious of boys and bodies, and the jeans are super tight. I very specifically decided to relinquish and release every muscle I had that I used to clench to hide the reality. That was my goal.”
The “Halloween” icon previously told People that she felt “embarrassed” going topless in 1983’s “Trading Places” when she was 21 years old.
“Did I look OK? Yeah. Did I know what I was doing? Yeah. Did I like it? No,” Curtis said during “PEOPLE (The TV Show!). “Was I doing it because it was the job? Yes.”
Curtis added, “I wouldn’t do it today, it’s the last thing in the world I would do now. I also am married for 37 years, I wasn’t married then. I’m a mother of children. Absolutely not.”
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” opens in limited theaters March 25 and will be released wide on April 8.
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