Jamie Lee Curtis on Her Emmy Win for ‘The Bear’: ‘I’m the Luckiest Girl in the World’
Jamie Lee Curtis has won an Emmy for her work on “The Bear.”
The actress who has a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe award and an Academy Award, can add the Emmy to her accolades after taking home the award Sunday for best guest actress in a comedy for her work on the hit FX show.
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Speaking backstage after her win, Curtis said, “I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I’ve been an actor since I was 19. and I’m 65; sold yogurt that makes you shit for seven years, and I just never thought in my life that I would get to do work at this level, depth and complexity and intelligence.” She went on to say, “It’s just been the thrill of my creative life these last couple years that I get these opportunities, so I’m humble and incredibly grateful.”
On “The Bear,” she played Donna Berzatto, the alcoholic mother of Carmy, Sugar and Mikey, in two episodes from Season 2. She is originally introduced in “Fishes,” a flashback episode chronicling the events of a family Christmas dinner five years prior to the show’s original timeline.
With her win, Curtis is halfway to EGOT status, having won a supporting actress Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Asked how she planned to achieve the elusive Tony, Curtis joked, she couldn’t “sing at all and I’ve never been on a stage. I’ve never done a play, and I don’t stay up late.” Curtis added, “I’m just not sure I would do so well in the theater, since you go to bed so late. But you know what, I never thought any of this was going to be possible in my life at all. And so the fact that this is happening is. I am I’m a totally a late bloomer.”
Curtis was previously nominated for “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie” in 1998 for “Nicholas’ Gift.”
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who plays Richie on the show, raved about Curtis’ performance in an interview with Variety. “Jamie Lee (Curtis) was so prepared, and she had such an active job to do that week,” Moss-Bachrach said. “It’s so hard to show up as a guest on somebody else’s set and own it like Jamie Lee did. It’s really remarkable. I can’t overstate how impressed I was with the work and preparation she did.”
Curtis beat Olivia Colman (“The Bear”), Kaitlin Olson (“Hacks”), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“Only Murders in the Building”), Maya Rudolph (“Saturday Night Live”) and Kristen Wiig (“Saturday Night Live”) who were also nominated in the category.
“The Bear” premiered on June 23, 2022. Season 3 premiered on June 26.
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