Jamie Lee Curtis just opened up about a cringe wrong assumption she made about Ana de Armas in an interview with Elle Magazine. The Everything Everywhere All At Once star, 63, sat down to discuss de Armas for a new profile on the Cuban-Spanish actress, 34, who she met and worked with on the acclaimed 2019 mystery flick Knives Out.
While de Armas had already starred in multiple Hollywood blockbusters at that point (like 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 and 2016’s War Dogs) and made a name for herself, Curtis thought that de Armas was not only new to the acting profession upon meeting her, but also new to the US. According to Elle, de Armas moved from Cuba for Spain at the age of 18, and then moved to Los Angeles at 26.
“I assumed — and I say this with real embarrassment — because she had come from Cuba, that she had just arrived,” Curtis said. “I made an assumption that she was an inexperienced, unsophisticated young woman. That first day, I was like, ‘Oh, what are your dreams?'”
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The profile emphasizes that Curtis had good intentions, and asked this question to try to “help” de Armas further her career (from hoping to introduce her to Steven Speilberg for a potential West Side Story audition to connecting her with her godchildren Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal). Curtis continued, “She is not as fancy as maybe the advertisements would have you believe.” The Halloween icon added, “She leans in, interested; talking to her is kind of give-and-take. She’s curious and asks a lot of questions.”
While some fans on Twitter noted that they were “uncomfortable” or “upset” by Curtis’s assumptions regarding de Armas upon meeting her, others commended her for “being able to discuss her mistakes” openly. Curtis and de Armas, it seems, are still good friends to this day, even if they might have started off on the right foot, others pointed out.
The Freaky Friday star also discussed de Armas’ upcoming role as Marilyn Monroe (birth name Norma Jean Mortenson) in the forthcoming biopic, Blonde (and how images of her on set as the Old Hollywood legend broke the internet). Curtis, whose parents were actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, said she was taken aback by the transformation de Armas underwent for the role, as she screen-tested for it while the two were filming Knives Out.
Jamie Lee Curtis assumed Ana de Armas had ‘just arrived’ from Cuba when they filmed ‘Knives Out’
“I made an assumption that she was an inexperienced, unsophisticated young woman”
(via @ELLEmagazine) pic.twitter.com/VMxsqBPk6G
— Culture Crave (@CultureCrave) July 13, 2022
“She showed me a picture of her as Marilyn,” Curtis said. “My father was in Some Like It Hot, and I have a lot of photos of my father and Marilyn. It was a couple of still pictures and one video of her moving through space with no audio. But it was so shocking because she was Marilyn.”
Blonde is set for a September 23 on Netflix, and de Armas described the film’s premise to Elle as a layered look at not only Monroe’s life post-fame, but also her identity off-screen. She notably said, “Fame is what made Marilyn the most visible person in the world, but it also made Norma the most invisible.”
