Oscar Nominee Jamie Lee Curtis Reveals She Wanted to Be a Cop (Exclusive)

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Jamie Lee Curtis spoke to “Extra’s” Jenn Lahmers at the 2023 Oscar Nominees Luncheon.

She opened up about her nomination, how she never intended to be an actress, as well as her life journey and sobriety.

Curtis called her nomination “incredible,” explaining, “I feel like I've discovered a secret room in my house that I've lived in for, you know, a long time that was sort of papered over… because I had a defense wall up because I never even wanted to dream about it… I never thought it would happen.”

She confessed, “I never thought I would be an actor, let alone get the opportunities I’ve had, so for me, it was just this secret room that has been opened since that morning [the nominations were read] and I keep going in it and sitting in the room going, ‘Right…’ It's just thrilling.”

Jamie Lee, the daughter of Hollywood icons Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, said of her career, “I thought I would be a cop. I thought I would be a police officer, a corrections officer. I thought maybe I'd be a social worker. I'm good with people. I believe in law and order. I thought that that would be my path.” She added, “Instead, it took me here.”

As for her life journey, she said, “The beautiful part of maturing as an adult is the ability to learn who you are… Not to jack my own line from ‘Freaky Friday,’ but, you know, ‘Make good choices’ and you start making better choices — and then you end up here.”

The 64-year-old added, “I've made some good choices. I've committed to my choices. I've raised a family with my husband [actor and writer Christopher Guest], I've been around doing a lot of work that I love and… I would have been complete, beyond complete, in my life without this… and then this happened.”

Opening up about her sobriety, she said, “I'm sober 24 years, and I think prior to getting sober I was pretending to be who I was… That is the biggest moment for me in my life, because of the generations of addicts in my family, the generations of alcoholism and drug addicts in the world.”

She continued, “That clarity yielded authenticity, that clarity yielded vulnerability, that clarity yielded a sense of myself that also was sort of freed, and that’s been really important to me.”