Jamie Lee Curtis Opens Up About 'Total Shock' of Her First Oscar Nomination

The actress said that she's felt like 'an outsider' in the industry throughout her career.

Jamie Lee Curtis just netted her very first Oscar nomination, and the Halloween star can't quite believe it.

The actress has been in the business for over five decades, but somehow, she's only just received her first Academy Award nomination for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Curtis is opening up about the moment she found out she was in the running, and it sounds like the shock has yet to dissipate.

"...it’s like discovering a secret room in the house you’ve lived in your whole life that you never knew was there—or if you did, you had papered over it or plastered over it and just forgotten about it. Having my name called that morning was a total shock," she described the moment she learned of the nomination. "I know people would say, 'Oh, come on Jamie, you knew.'" But Curtis says she avoided reading prediction lists and asked her friends not to send them to her. She knew the movie—and her colleagues—would be nominated, but she says her own nomination was like "discovering a secret room and going, 'Oh, my God.'"

She continued, sharing, "I am giddy with excitement about it. The smile has not left my face. I’m kinda curmudgeonly. I’m very careful because I’ve been an actress since I was 19; I’m 64 and I’ve tried not to get my heart broken by the industry. I have felt like an outsider...Needless to say, my secret garden is blooming and I am both weepy and giddy."

Behind that secret door, Curtis says she found her parents. "It felt like they knew that would happen, even though I didn’t. I have followed—nepo baby!—in my parents’ footsteps. In my mother’s case, literally followed her. Yet their fame and success was always—to me, their stardom at the time was so ginormous that even though I’ve had fantastic success, I never thought I would reach their level."

Congratulations to Jamie Lee Curtis for this momentous occasion—you deserve it!