Nicole Kidman, Jamie Lee Curtis talk friendship, new thriller 'Scarpetta'
Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis are teaming up for a new thriller.
The two Academy Award-winning actresses are the stars and executive producers of the crime thriller "Scarpetta," out now on Prime Video.
Based on Patricia Cornwell's bestselling novels, the series follows embattled sisters who are haunted by their father's murder, which happened when they were children. Their father's death inspires Kidman's character, Kay Scarpetta, to become a forensic pathologist.
In preparation for the role, Kidman said she personally learned how to perform an autopsy.
"Oh yeah, all the organs and what comes out first and how you contain them," Kidman told "Good Morning America" in an interview ahead of the show's premiere. "We know how to pick up the scalpel, we know exactly what we're doing, and that takes a lot of time."
Kidman said that playing Kay has been something she's always wanted to do.
"My sister read the novels," Kidman said. "She's crime obsessive. So when it came around, she was like, 'Oh my god, you have to do it. You have to do this.'"
Kidman said Curtis also helped convince her to take the role, saying, "When this woman asks you to do something, she's incredibly beguiling."
In the series, the duo's characters share an onscreen fistfight.
"She won," Kidman said, adding that Curtis is "strong."
Curtis added that the fight "was a real wrestle."
"She is, as I would say, a wee wisp of a girl," Curtis said about Kidman. "She's lithe and thin and strong, but you know, I'm zaftig, and I can pack a punch."
Off screen, the actresses said that they have nothing but admiration for each other. They said they only met in person for the first time in 2022 at the 94th Academy Awards, but had long admired each other from afar.
"I was sitting at a table minding my own business, and my friend said, 'Jamie, someone wants to talk to you,'" Curtis recalled about their first meeting. "And Nicole Kidman was standing behind me. I'd never met her."
Curtis said that they shook hands and recalled the profound message that Kidman gave her that night: "I watch you. I'm watching you, and I like what you do. I like what you say. I like how you do what you do, and I want you to keep doing it."
"I think I looked at her and said, 'And you're good too,'" Curtis said. "And then she walked away."
When asked what they've learned about each other since working on "Scarpetta," Kidman said Curtis "emotionally and physically holds you and offers incredible, unconditional love."
Referring to Kidman, Curtis added, "There's an incredible gentle person here that I didn't know, and I think what we have shared together has been the human part."
