Transcript of Keeping It Unapologetically Real with Jamie Lee Curtis

Lemonada. Alive with Steve Burns. Hey, there you are. Hi. Come on in. Welcome to Alive. It's very good to see you. So I got a question for you today. You ready? Do you like who you are? Yeah, I know. There's tea. I'm making tea. Do you want some tea? Let's have some tea. So somebody asked me that question just the other day, and I honestly didn't know how to answer them. I think I said something like, It's complicated, which is true, if you think about it, because most days I would say, Yeah, I think I generally like myself. That wasn't always true. God knows. But nowadays, sure. I think so. But it varies still a little bit day to day, moment to moment, mood to mood. Does that make sense? Yeah. But what makes it all really tricky is that we all have so many versions of ourself to like or not like now. You know what I mean? For example, there's the me that my family knows, and that is totally different in a lot of ways from the me when I'm at work or the me when I'm online, for example, which is like a whole other thing.

Then there's the me, me that nobody sees.

Here you go. We're always curating, in a way. We're always presenting these different versions of ourselves for other people. And I guess they're all supposed to be authentic, whatever that means. And if I'm honest, I don't even think I know which one is the real me most of the time, because I'm constantly clocking what other people are thinking. Do you do that? Yeah. I mean, I'm always editing, I'm always adapting, I'm always shrinking expanding or pruning myself to meet other people's expectations. That can get exhausting. It can really get to you. And so today, Today, I was wondering, what would it be like if we didn't do that? What would it be like if we stopped caring so much about what other people thought? What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Okay. Jamie Lee Curtis can apparently do everything. She is... I mean, what do you even say? She's a radically authentic, multi generational, complete badass. She's an award-winning actor, former Scream Queen. She is one of my favorite children's book authors. And for a minute there, she made Poop Yogurt totally glamorous. Imagine being able to do that. She also won an Academy Award, we all know, for Everything Everywhere All At Once, and an Emmy for the Bear.

I am only two seasons into The Bear. And I will tell you that the holiday episode nearly took me out. And I mean it, it messed me up. Okay, but she also, apparently, stopped giving a shit about what people think of her years ago, and that is my favorite thing about her. She's here. Okay. Oh, hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, Jamie Lee Curtis.

That was a laudatory introduction.

You deserve to be louded.

I don't know about that. I think everybody deserves to be louded. Just some people get a lot more louding than others.

I agree. I agree with you, actually. But I am thrilled and honored to loud you because I think you are truly awesome.

Is this called a podcast?

Yeah, but it's really like a public access cable show from the '90s. That's the way I'm seeing it. You know what I mean?

I do, but here's my beef. Can I just Biff, Biff, Biff, Biff. If it's a podcast, why do we have to be on camera? So I agree that it's more like a public access television. I just think it's hilarious that everybody has a podcast. Not everybody, But people have podcasts now. And they ask me to do it. I'm like, Great. Pick a day. And then I'm like, But it's not on camera, right? And they go, Oh, yeah, it is. And they're lit like bitches. You know what I mean? They've been They brought in professional lighting people, and they have the earphones and the microphones, and their chairs are at the right height. I'm coming in in in my house where I'm not lit. How are you doing? Exactly. I have no makeup team here. It's that world of that. Anyway, what I was going to say to you is I am absolutely calmed whenever you put into the portal, into our brains, a moment of calm, a moment of gratitude for nature, a moment of being where... One of my favorite phrases in recovery is be where your feet are.

Oh, I like that.

Because we're in our effing heads so much of our lives. I'm so bullied by every time you offer a moment by a river, a moment in a field, a moment of calm, quiet, reflection of this miracle moment, this moment with you. For me, that's enough. I mean, I'm happy to be here with you in your cabin in the woods, but you know what I'm saying.

Well, we do that here on the podcast, too. This podcast has a ton of silence in it. There's a ton of listening. I the podcast that listens. You know what I mean? Clever. But you asked before, why do we have to be on camera? For me, that's why. Making this connection to this weird little pinhole camera that then goes to outer space and then goes to you, making that feel viable and immediate is the one thing in this world I have 10,000 hours of doing. That's the only thing I can do.

Yeah, far out.

I did a little shout-out video during the pandemic that I didn't write. I just improved it, and I was like, Hey, what's up? Remember when we used to hang out? It was just a very, very simple care-driven, quiet, relaxed conversation, and it blew up. That made me realize, Oh, this is missing in this technology, right?

Yeah. They call me a weapon of mass promotion because I can sell shit. This, what we're doing, and selling shit is the purpose of the Internet. Some recipes and some research and occasionally acts of kindness that you see, that the portal bring to you, that you realize that there are kind and beautiful people in the world.

The rest of it- I mean, it could be about those things, but man, I could talk about this shit forever. But it is optimized for conflict, and it is optimized to steal your attention.

It's already doing it. If you just even look at unreality television, as you said, it is born out of, let's create a situation so we can create conflict. I remember when The View was a TV show in its infancy with five generations of women sharing their experiences from their generational point of view and their cultural point of view, but in a loving way. Obviously, what it has turned into is still a good show, and there's still good voices on it, but it's really born for conflict. Now it is, yeah. It is fed the more conflict the more, as you said, attention. I'm aware of that tendency in the universe.

I think we just have to humanize this interaction.

Well, we are.

Yeah, we are. And you do, right? You are actually a shining example, especially lately, I think, of a human person who is in the media. It's like, Oh, yeah, I recognize that as a person. You're a giant celebrity, but you're also very human and incredibly authentic and incredibly relatable through all of these lenses, right? And that is a rare thing that we just don't see a lot of that. And with you, it seems like people seem to love you more the less you seem to perform in these environments. Yeah, far out. And the less you conform to whatever the media expectations are, people cheer for that. I think you're an example of that, an example of authenticity and for being just a real freaking person, don't you think?

Yeah. The thing I have to avoid is getting branded as authentic.

There you go.

Because a brand, if you think about what really a brand When you actually use the word brand, you're taking something really hot and you're searing it into the skin of an animal or a person, and you're claiming it in an ownership way. I have to be really clear that I don't let myself become the brand of authenticity because I'm human and I am flawed and I get really angry I get really, really sad at times. It's important that I don't get locked into some box of authenticity. It has to be fluid.

I feel you. I am same. I actually don't like the word authentic very much for that reason. I think it's overused. I think human Human is a much better word. Human.

Well, because human beings are flawed and contradictory.

Right. I worry that I'm going to disappoint people simply by being a regular human being, which is a weird thing to think. I think we need to regularize human beings on the internet. That's what I think. Yeah.

I don't disagree with you. But at the same time, we also get to do our life's purpose. Like, I'm not also trying to do this to... I'm doing me, and the more I get to do me in the way I feel is naturally me without the conforming of... There's an E. L. D. Ro quote that talks about things getting calcified. When things become mythological. Old ideas become mythological. In families, they become very powerful, and they create conformity, and they intimidate. I feel like my whole life, there was a lot of that. To emerge from it with my own mind, with my own soul, with my own creativity, with my own artistry, with my own talent, whatever whatever and however that is, because I was not that person in my early life. That was not my path. Now I have my own mind. It's actually my mind.

What changed?

Well, getting sober was a big aspect of it. Under the lash of alcoholism and drug addiction, I was not really free to be me. Getting sober was a big step in that direction, conquering a family-long, generationally-long list of family members who fell into the lash of drug addiction, alcoholism, whatever level of that you want to claim it. I'm very lucky. I was a very high bottom person, and it was a very secreted- What does that mean?

What does that What do you mean?

High bottom just... Well, a low bottom means that you've crashed and burned your life. You've lost your relationship. The children have been taken. You've lost your job. Your family doesn't speak to you. You're in debt. That's a low bottom. High bottom is someone who managed not to lose their marriage, their family, their wealth, their work, their family members, their extended family, their friends. But what makes high bottoms really tricky is the thing you've lost is your self-respect. That if you really are a high bottom user, drinker, whatever, it means nobody really sees it. So the dance is really in here. It's not... They say in recovery, the most dangerous neighborhood to go in is between this air and this air. You should go... What is it? Like buddy breathing? You always should go with a friend. If you're going into your brain, you should go with a friend because it can be a really dark place. If you're a high bottom, you're hiding it really, really, really well.

And effectively, right? Yeah.

Masterfully. Masterfully.

That's sustaining, right? You're able to pull it off for a really long time because you- A really long time. Yeah, because you don't crash and burn. You're just maintaining.

Yeah, and the paparazzi don't have pictures of you asleep in your car or stumbling out of a bar.

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You seem like you don't give a shit. And if so, how did you get there? I want to get there. I give a lot of shits.

What I try not to give a shit about is that what you think of me is none of my business.

Right. I have heard that before, and I can't get my brain around it. I think I intellectually understand it, but I can't plug that in.

Yeah. I really do have to operate in a world where it's It's impossible for everyone to like me. I am pro-choice. I have a trans daughter. There are people in this country who are actively trying to stop her possibility of existing or denying her existence, who are on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me, who don't like me at all. I'm trying to be quietly political, and I mean that simply to say I don't want to just be a screaming political person. I want to listen. I want to find Common Ground. I believe we can find common ground. And how do we make that happen? And I just think that's the way in. In that sense, I think it's just important to keep an open mind, understand that a lot of people are not going to like you, and also understand that people can also be very much in the same path as you and feel allied. Almost every day to someone, I write the words the long and winding road. For For me, the long and winding road means we're both on it, and I'm glad we're both on it, that I'm on it with you.

I'm on it with you right now, Steve Burns.

Same. You're just amazing. I love you.

I love you, too, Steve Burns.

The moment right now, you are literally everywhere.

I'm everything everywhere all I want right now, baby.

I wasn't going to do it. Why not? I decided not to do it. I was like, You know what? I won't do that. I'll not do that.

The other way to say it is I'm ubiquitous, but I prefer everything everywhere all at once.

Sounds better for sure. I think I'm missing stuff, too. I was writing this little bio to introduce you. I'm like, I'm thinking there's four or five other things going on. There's the reboot, there's the Freak Your Friday.

Yeah, but you know what? Guess Guess what? I didn't come here to sell anything. I know.

I'm not so much trying to point to projects you're doing as more as I'm just saying, this is a human person with a gajillion eyeballs on them. This is a person with I've just finished Hustle, where I've had a gazillion, gillion eyeballs. You were on a world tour, right?

I did a world tour for Freakier Friday. I haven't done one of those in a minute. It was a hustle. It was definitely a hustle. It was successful. Lindsay and I had a great time. I get to be a boss, and I get to have ideas and go, Oh, what about that? Oh, what about this? I've been waiting my whole life for that. My whole life. I'm 67 this year.

Are you really?

Yeah. In a month or two.

Did I read somewhere that you wanted to be a cop?

I got out of high school. I crawled called out of high school.

Okay.

And thought the best use of me would be to be a police officer, that I have a very strong backbone of law and order. Yeah. And I believe I'm a good person And I thought I'd make a good cop.

Is it weird that I can see it and that it makes a form of sense? I can't explain why, but I'm like, Oh, yeah, I see that. I see that. I can see that happening. I am personally very glad that you became an actress, though. We've talked, I'm a fan. But I do want to talk, if you don't mind, just for a second about the bearer, because I'm only two seasons in, so I'm saving the rest of it. Everyone has told me what to expect, and I'm like, Don't talk about it. But the holiday episode took me out. It makes me emotional because I almost didn't like it. I almost didn't want to see it.

You almost didn't want to see that episode?

I was like, This is making me uncomfortable. You got so close to something there. I didn't grow up around alcoholism. I didn't. But I grew up in a volatile place where someone could control the weather and make you wonder, Is it going to be okay? And that episode was so on it. It was just so visceral and in the guts that... It was honestly just a handful of those performances that I even can place it with. But that's the awesome thing about TV right now. There's so much awesome TV.

There's an awesome TV.

And that show. It's like that show is about human people.

But see, that's the point, is what I love about the show, and it's really, it's Chris Stohrer It's his writing and his directing. I mean, there are other people that write. Joanna Calla writes with him, and other people have written, obviously, episodes. But for the most part, it's Chris. What I'm particularly particularly happy about is that you enter this world and you have no idea who these people are to begin with. So just from the beginning, starting a show from scratch. And then you meet this family, and all of a sudden you go, Okay, yeah, the brother died. Okay. And you start to piece together the story. And I love that you hear about Donna, but you don't meet her for 16 episodes of the show.

It's quite a build-up.

That for a long time you're watching the result, not of hers alone, because I think it's a combination of factors, but clearly the mother, has a huge impact on her children, and then the concentric circles that come off of those relationships. I I just thought it was a miracle for me, and I'm continually grateful for it. The fact that I ended up getting to do that is a little bit of a miracle. So it was a really extraordinary experience for me.

Absolutely. It was extraordinary to watch. It was extraordinary to watch. It was life-changing. Yeah, I mean, it was some of the most connected things I've ever seen in my entire life.

Life-changing.

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Well, I said that on television. Yeah. I revere art. I revere storytelling. I am a music maniac. I listen to music all day long. Musical poets. Kendrick Lamar is a freaking poet. Joni Mitchell is a poet. James Taylor is a poet. Art, painting, photography, design, cooking, It's all in art form. Being in the movies, being in horror movies and being an actor, I just didn't feel the art of it. I felt like I was a part of something that was great and entertaining and fun, but I didn't really think about it as an art form. I think Everything Everywhere All At Once changed that because I saw it was a work of art. From the beginning, I could tell it was a work of art. I'm not sure I even accepted that I was an artist in it, but I understood that this was an art form. I didn't understand the art form. I didn't understand really the story. You know when I learned what the story was about? When they were shooting the sequences in the laundromat, there was the sequence where Key Kwan and Michelle reunite. I remember watching it on the monitors with the Daniels, and I remember watching it, and then halfway through that scene, I went, The movie's about love.

Oh, the movie's about love. I realized in a way at that moment, I recognized that it was the greatest art form. It combines all the things I just said to you, poetry, music, it's painting, design, all combining into a motion picture that was a beautiful piece of art. I think in that moment, I recognized the art of it all.

You felt, I am part of that. This meets my criteria.

I am. I felt, I am part of that. I am a color in the painting, and I'm a note in the music, but I am part of an art form. To go from that and then to the bear I now... I get it. I get it. I don't take... It's not like I walk around with a hat.

I am an artist. I am Jimmy Lucates. I am the world's greatest meeting artist.

I'm not. I'm just saying it's an art form.

I don't know. I've considered you an artist for a really long time, obviously because I'm a huge fan of your acting. But also your art for children, your voice for children is tremendous and special.

They are my best thing for sure.

I have a bunch of them. I have a bunch of them right back here.

The thing that will last the longest will be the books that I wrote for children.

They are beautiful.

They will be the best distillation of who I am and what I think.

Balloons made me cry snot onto my shirt.

So Balloons, the last four pages of Balloons, So Balloons for the Uninitiated is a book called Where Do Balloons Go? An Uplifting mystery. And it's a book about wonder, and it's a book about loss and letting go. Oh, you're showing the book. That's so cute. You're such a good person.

I love this book.

There's also a book that I wrote called Is There Really a Human Race? Which is a book about competition.

Oh, it's smart.

Yes, it's a book about... It uses a race as a metaphor for, Is this what life is? Is it just something that is about winning and losing and competition? And do we elbow each other out of the way? And what Is it a dash? Is it a long thing? This child is very, very concerned and very freaked out. This child, a little boy, asks the mother, it's like, Is it a long race or is it a lifelong dash? If we don't help each other, we're all going to crash. The child is now panicked that he was entered into the human race but didn't know that it was just nothing but a shitty reality show competition, and that it was all about surviving and that we weren't going to survive because we were all out for ourselves. What does that mean? That means we're going to crash if we can't. Then the mother calms the child who clearly sees that he's asking these huge existential mind-bending questions about human human beings and what we're doing in the world. The mommy says this. She says, Sometimes it's better not to go fast. They're beautiful sights to be seen when you're last.

Come on. Shouldn't it be that you just try your best, and that's more important than beating the rest? Shouldn't it be, looking back at the end, that you to judge your own race by the help that you lend? So take what's inside you and make big, bold choices. For those who can't speak for themselves, use bold voices and make friends and love well and bring art to this place and make the world better for the whole human race.

Jamie, that's so beautiful. That's so hard to do.

That's my best thing. That's the best thing I will ever do, Steve Burns. It's so good. I don't know where they come from. I really don't understand where it comes from, but I know that it's my best thing. This was my little child coming home one day where clearly they were at school and someone said something shitty, like, You shouldn't even be in the human race. My kid came home. Ruby came home from school with this panicked look on her face, and she said to me, Is there really a human race? You, bitch, you didn't tell me that you entered me into a race that you didn't tell me I was in or on, and you were just going to stand over there while I navigated this racetrack of life, and you didn't mention it was a race. I literally went... I felt so awful that that's what she thought, that I walked in my house and I wrote that book in about 15 minutes. Yeah.

Wow. I was going to ask you where all that comes from, and I'm not surprised to say you don't know.

Oh, I have no idea. I interviewed LL Cool Jay once because he was in a movie with me, and I interviewed him for Interview magazine. I remember during the interview, I said, So you can just freestyle? And he said, Yeah. I was like, Okay, you mean you'd freestyle about mashed potatoes? Because we were at a restaurant. And he did.

Yeah, I believe that.

I couldn't believe it. It's like the flow, the flow of a rapper, the flow of someone, a poet who can get into the flow of words and ideas is how I enter that space. Where do balloons go? We were at a kid's birthday party, and it was a very simple birthday party at a public park. And The kids were playing on the structures. The party itself were root beer floats, which is like a gallon thing of ice cream, a big thing of root beer and red solo cups. The party favors were helium balloons tied to a pole. That was it. It was at a public park in the mountains in Idaho. A storm came, turned black the sky, and we all took shelter under this gazebo. All of a sudden, the wind whipped up and it got really intense. A little kid was like, tugging on the string of the balloons, and all of a sudden, they were untied from the pole, and they all shot out into the sky. They were like, all these crayon colors against dark, gray sky. Everybody went like, and we watched them dance and move like crazy. A little girl named Rachel Evans pulled on her mommy's sweater, standing right next to me, and she said, Mommy, where do balloons go?

I swear I was struck by lightning. I felt like I was like, and I grabbed Ruby, and I ran to my car, and I put Ruby in the car seat, drove home fast, got Ruby out of the car seat, handed Ruby to Chris, and said, Don't talk to me. I walked into a room, laid down on the floor, and wrote, Where do balloons go? In about 15 minutes.

See, that's wild. This was such a... I love this book.

It's a great book. It's a great book.

Have you ever heard that saying, That which fortune gives us does not belong to us.

No, but I dig it. No, I totally love it.

Yeah, it's like- I love exactly that. I believe that's true. I believe those things, they're not ours. They choose us and we do them.

I have to believe that because the last thing I thought I would do that day was write a book. Then this moment happened, and then I laid down on a floor and wrote, Where do balloons go when you let them go free? It can happen by accident. It's happened to me.

It's happened to me.

And then where do they go when they float far away? Do they ever catch cold? Need somewhere to stay? And of course, where they're staying in my book is the Bates Motel.

Don't they go to Bolivia and stuff? They go all over the world, don't they? I'm trying to remember.

Yeah.

Well, you have an uncommon voice for this, right? And I've developed, over the years, I've developed strong opinions about content for children. And and what works. I always think it's about A game. I think a lot of people don't bring their A game to kids' stuff, and they don't bring what we were talking about before, which is this deeply human perspective. I always say you got to sing to the whole child. Most people give kids, Yay, or, Aw, but they don't talk to them about loss.

Well, somebody referred to these books as self-help books for kids, which it wasn't my intention, but my intention was also not to make something innocuous. It had to have... If the book doesn't make me cry, it's not my book.

Right. I got you. I feel that. You just include all of the human stuff. It has human ballast. It's four children, but it's full of human ballast. I always talk about how Bert. Bert is the most human character that lives on Sesame Street. He is much more human than Maria or Louise. I can imagine Bert at work. Bert is not moving- Bert at work?

By the way, Bert at work? Where's that book?

That's a good Look, right. That dude does not move comfortably through the world. You know what I mean? No. And yet it's for kids, and yet it's awesome. I don't want to keep you forever, Jamie. Actually, I do. I would like that, but I shant to do that.

No, you shant.

I shant. You shant. But you're incredibly amazing and incredibly wonderful.

I'm happy to know you, and I'm happy to be alive with you, Steve Burns.

Oh, my gosh. Thanks for dropping by.

We really appreciate it. It's nice to see your cabin and to be in your cabin for a minute. You're welcome anytime. Thank you. I look forward to coming back. Thanks for asking Jamie. Yeah. And thanks for your quietude and your reminders, which I pay attention to every time you offer one, I take the moment. I actually take the moment for stillness and quietude.

I love it. I love it. This was wonderful. Thank you, Jamie.

God bless you. Take care. And bye, everybody. Bye. See you. Bye.

No, don't close me Okay, full disclosure, I love Jamie Lee Curtis, and I have for a very long time, so I got a little lost. I had 200 more questions here to ask her, and I did not get to them. But I did have a lovely time, and I did learn lots of wonderful things, and I did write some stuff down. I wrote down, be where your feet are. I like that one. I think, obviously, it means be in the moment, be with the moment and with the people who are here now in front of you and let all the uncontrollable stuff go be uncontrollable, like other people's opinions. Which brings me to the next thing I wrote down, which is what other people think of you is not your business. I've heard that before. It's one that I struggle with, but I do think it's right. I mean, you can't, you literally can't control what everyone thinks of you all the time. You really can't make everyone happy everywhere all the time, all at once. It's not a thing. So maybe it's not about giving no shits. Maybe it's about deciding which shit to give.

What do you think? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go. So The entire world is basically trying to influence you at all times, right? That means that your attention is basically a currency, and what you spend it on matters. I mean, you can spend it on outrage, and the world feels angrier. You can spend it on kindness, the world feels a little softer. And the thing is, you only have so much to spend, right? It's a finite resource. So what will you spend your attention on? Today. Yeah. You know, I'm glad we're doing this. This is cool. This podcast, this is fun. Yeah, I'm looking forward to doing more. It's good to see you. Thanks for coming. You look great.

Alive with Steve Burns is a Lemenade of Media original. If you haven't subscribed to Lemenata Premium yet, now is the perfect time. You can listen to the show completely ad-free. Plus, you'll unlock exclusive bonus content from me as I reflect on this episode. Just press subscribe on Apple Podcasts, head to lemenatapremium. Com to subscribe on any other app, or listen ad-free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. That's lemonadapremium. Com. Alive is hosted by me, Steve Burns, and produced by Jeremy Slutsken. Our editor is Christopher Champion-Morgan. Our associate producer is Aksha Tharabailu. Audio engineering by James Barber. Lemanata's SVP of Weekly programming is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Jessica Cordeover-Kramer, Stephanie Wittelswax, and me. We'll see you next week. You look great, by the way.