Jamie Lee Curtis has finally revealed how she convinced Nicole Kidman to join an ensemble cast Scarpetta.
In a recent SXSW panel discussion, Curtis reminisced about her first meeting with Kidman, revealing how she brought the Oscar-winning actress into her television adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s hit crime novels.
After the Even crazier Friday After the star told Kidman about her titular character, forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta, she became “very excited” and asked seriously, “And you’re in on it?”
Curtis, who bought the rights for Scarpetta in 2021 said that working with production was not her “plan.”
“I want to write checks. I don’t want to put on makeup. I want to look at the dailies and tell people they did a great job… I really didn’t want to be on an hour-long drama TV show because the hours are horrible,” she explained.
However, the 67-year-old American actress and producer could not share this with Kidman, because “when [she] looks at you with those eyes, and she says, “And you’re in it?” You say: ‘Yes, of course, I’m in! Why else would I produce it?’”
Curtis had particularly approved of the Eyes wide closed actress, but the biggest problem came when she couldn’t find any character to play.
After a long struggle, a minor character of Kay Scarpetta’s older sister, Dorothy, a children’s book author, was discovered in Cornwell’s series of 29 books.
“I was like, OK, great, I’ll be her sister,” Curtis said of the discovery, but what shocked her was the fact that “Dorothy is quite a man-eater.”
It’s remarkable to mention that Scarpettareleased on Amazon Prime Video on March 11, 2026, it also starred Simon Baker, Rosy McEwen, Bobby Cannavale, Ariana DeBose, Jake Cannavale and others.
