Did Jamie Lee Curtis Risk Her Life Doing Her Own Stunts In Everything Everywhere All At Once?
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Jamie Lee Curtis's fans will know she is a versatile actress with many standout roles over the years. She is also unafraid to tackle the more challenging parts, including those with intense physical requirements.
But was the Academy Awards-darling Everything Everywhere All At Once her breaking point? This was a film where she did her own stunt scenes, but they were not completely without incident…
What Is Everything Everywhere All At Once About?
When Everything Everywhere All At Once came out, there was great excitement about it. It is a highly-rated film nominated for 11 Oscars (including one for all the main actresses, including Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Curtis). It was written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert and stars big names like Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, and Stephanie Hsu.
The story follows Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, a laundromat owner whose business is investigated by the IRS. A strange twist results in Yeoh being transported into another universe where she has to battle (among others) inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdra, who Jamie Lee Curtis plays.
The story is described on IMDB as "A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led." Without going into too much detail, it is a fascinating film, but it also requires some intense scenes, which the stars were willing to take on, including Curtis, who is 64.
How Did Jamie Lee Curtis Approach Her Stunt Scenes?
Stunt coordinator and fight choreographer Timothy Eulich gave an exclusive to Looper about what it was like working on the film and explained that the cast was eager to get involved with their own stunts.
"Everyone was game," Eulich told the publication. "I think having Michelle as number one on the call sheet really raised the bar for the entire cast. They all wanted to come in and do as much of their action as they possibly could and they did. You can really see that in the final edit of this film." Of course, the goal was still to do the performances with safety as the main concern, which Eulich expanded on.
"It's always my goal as a stunt coordinator to have the actors do as much as they can possibly do, if not everything," he said. "But there is some danger there, and at the end of the day... I want to make sure everybody goes home to their family in one piece, safely."
"Jamie wanted to do everything," Eulich told Looper of her work on the film. "We were putting her up into some pretty big wire rigs and flying her around the space. She had that professional wrestling sequence with the Waymond character, picking him up and spinning him around over her head before breaking his back over her knee. She put a lot of time into that. We also spent a lot of time with her at the stairwell, flying down the stairs."
This Was Jamie Lee Curtis' Toughest Scene In Everything Everywhere All At Once?
Jamie Lee Curtis' dedication to filming her stunt scenes is impressive but not without incident, and one scene, in particular, left her covered in bruises. Her co-star and the film lead, Michelle Yeoh, is well-known for doing her own stunts, which she did. But she also discussed what it was like working with Curtis on the film in a 2022 interview with Variety.
When asked, "what was it like filming the staircase fight scene" and her experience of working with Curtis, Yeoh responded with praise for the veteran actress. "Jamie is game for everything. She's so inspirational because she’s not just an amazing actress, she's a truly generous person and very committed," Yeoh explained.
"I said to her, 'Jamie, don't put me through the wall, we're just acting.' When she came down that staircase, I said to her, 'Are you sure you want to do this?' and she replied, 'When else am I going to get a chance to do this?'" Yeoh said. "But when we were doing that fight sequence, it was like a dance. It's about timing. She's so good and she's smart and she's very physical."
But surprisingly, the stair segment was not the one that left Jamie Lee Curtis covered in bruises. As Michelle Yeoh explained, that was thanks to the hot dog scene. "This is the scene where we're going at it with our hot dog fingers, and those things are like hoses," she said. "They're made to fit, but they're made of silicone. The next day she came back and was covered in bruises, and I asked her if she had had an accident. She had all these bruises on her thighs from just going for it."
This is not the first time Jamie Lee Curtis has tackled difficult scenes, and she was adamant that she wanted to do a potentially dangerous stunt in Halloween Ends. It required her head to be thrown into a prop glass cabinet, and the director of the film, David Gordon Green, gave an interview to Insider about this in 2022.
"I would say 98% of the stunts are her doing them," he said about Curtis' work on the film. "Actually, her double only did two shots."
Gordon Green also recalled the moment Curtis revealed to him that she wanted to do her own stunt in the scene. "And I was thinking, I still got two more weeks to work with you, I can't have shards of glass in your face," Green said. "But she did it. That's her face going in the glass. That stunt was her idea. I was reluctant — if not trying to forbid it — but it happened, and it looks great."
Jamie Lee Curtis is a fantastic actress with many credits to her name, and it turns out she is also a bit of a bad*ss.
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