Jamie Lee Curtis chokes up remembering first time she met Nicole Kidman at the Oscars: 'Are you k...

&34;Almost makes me cry saying it,&34; recalled Curtis before sharing her &34;Scarpetta&34; costar's touching first words to her during a SXSW panel this weekend. Jamie Lee Curtis chokes up remembering first time she met Nicole Kidman at the Oscars: 'Are you kidding me?' &34;Almost makes me cry saying it,&34; recalled Curtis before sharing her &34;Scarpetta&34; costar's touching first words to her during a SXSW panel this weekend. By Wesley Stenzel :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/WesleyStenzelauthorphoto32b61793a2784639af623f2ae091477e.jpg) Wesley Stenzel Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at .

"Almost makes me cry saying it," recalled Curtis before sharing her "Scarpetta" costar's touching first words to her during a SXSW panel this weekend.

Jamie Lee Curtis chokes up remembering first time she met Nicole Kidman at the Oscars: 'Are you kidding me?'

"Almost makes me cry saying it," recalled Curtis before sharing her "Scarpetta" costar's touching first words to her during a SXSW panel this weekend.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

EW's editorial guidelines

March 14, 2026 6:17 p.m. ET

Leave a Comment

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis attend the New York premiere of 'Scarpetta' on March 3, 2026. Credit:

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty

Jamie Lee Curtis remembers the first time she met Nicole Kidman — and it still brings tears to her eyes.

The Oscar-winning *Everything Everywhere All at Once* actress, who stars with Kidman in the new Prime Video series *Scarpetta*, recalled meeting her during a conversation with *Newsweek*'s H. Alan Scott at SXSW in Austin on Saturday.

Curtis explained that they linked up at an Academy Awards ceremony where the *Freaky Friday* star was set to present the In Memoriam tribute to Betty White, who died in December 2021. (Curtis said the encounter happened at the 2021 Oscars in a recent *Tonight Show* interview, but the Betty White tribute was at the 2022 Oscars.)

"It was during COVID, when we were at cafe tables, and I was sitting at a little table, and my publicist and friend Heidi was sitting with me before the show," Curtis said at the SXSW panel. "Ten minutes before the show began, my tablemate hadn't arrived yet. Heidi was sitting there and she said, 'Jamie, somebody wants to talk to you.' And I said, 'What do you mean?'"

Jamie Lee Curtis in February 2026.

Jon Kopaloff/Getty

Spinning around in her seat at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Curtis was surprised to see Kidman behind her. "Standing here was Nicole Kidman with her hands by her sides — just standing behind my chair. And I went … 'Hello, Nicole Kidman,' and she moved, and we shook hands."

Curtis became visibly emotional, holding back tears as she shared Kidman's first real words to her. "This is what Nicole Kidman said to me," she began, choking up. "Almost makes me cry saying it. She said, 'I see you. I see who you are. I see what you do. I see how you do it. And I really like it, and I want you to continue doing it.'"

The *Halloween* star was flabbergasted. "Nicole f---ing Kidman! Are you kidding me?" she said. "She was saying that to *me*, at the Oscars, where she was a nominee! And then she walked away. That was how I met her."

Bobby Cannavale calls 'Scarpetta' sex scenes with Jamie Lee Curtis 'really fun'

'Scarpetta' star Nicole Kidman taught costar Rosy McEwen an important lesson: 'Power is quiet'

During the SXSW panel, Curtis also explained that she had initially only planned to produce *Scarpetta* and had no intention to act in it. "I wanna be a producer," she said. "I wanna write checks. I don't wanna put on makeup. I wanna look at dailies and tell people they did great. I wanna do team building. And I really didn't want to be in an [hourlong] drama TV show, because the hours are awful."

However, when Kidman became interested in the series, Curtis immediately reconsidered. "And when Nicole Kidman looks at you with those eyes and says, 'You're in it?' you say, 'Yes, queen!'" she said. "'Yes, of course I'm in it. Of course I'm in it! Why else would I produce it?' And then we tried to scramble to figure out what I would play."

Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis on 'Scarpetta'.

Connie Chornuk / Prime

Based on Patricia Cornwell's *Scarpetta* series, which kicked off with the 1990 novel *Postmortem*, the new show stars Kidman as medical examiner Kay Scarpetta and Curtis as Kay's sister, Dorothy.

Curtis described the dynamic between the fictional siblings in a new interview with **. "She's a man-eater," the *Knives Out* actress said of her character. "But what's fascinating is Dorothy and Kay both lost their father to murder, and Kay spends the rest of her life studying murder and trying to reverse it, trying to understand it, trying to figure out what she can learn from it so it never happens again."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.*****

She continued, "Dorothy has just taken the opposite path, basically saying, 'I've known death very early, so bring it f---ing on.' She is going to devour the world, because she already knows that death is coming for her, because it came for her father."

*Scarpetta* is streaming now on Prime Video.

*Additional reporting by Tiffany Kelly.***

- Celebrities & Creators

- Celebrity Friends and Family

Original Article on Source

Source: "EW Celebrity"

Read More

---

Source: Celebrity

Published: March 15, 2026 at 12:38AM on Source: RED MAG

#ShowBiz#Sports#Celebrities#Lifestyle