SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Every week, a guest draws a card from NPR's Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. Jamie Lee Curtis says she's waited her whole life for the kinds of acting opportunities she's getting these days. Her newest movie is "Ella McCay." It tells the story of a young woman as she balances her political career as a governor with her personal life.
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JAMIE LEE CURTIS: She comes from a very complicated family, as we all do. And I get to play her Aunt Helen. Her Aunt Helen - her mom has passed, and her Aunt Helen is that person in her corner that always tells her the truth and loves her unconditionally and is a feisty, funny - you know, everybody needs an Aunt Helen, everybody.
DETROW: Curtis talked to Wild Card host Rachel Martin about her long-running fight against Hollywood's beauty standards.
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RACHEL MARTIN: What do you look forward to when you're older?
CURTIS: Getting older (laughter).
MARTIN: Just having more...
CURTIS: Just getting older. Just more (laughter) - just, you know, even thinner skin, you know, 'cause...
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CURTIS: ...The thin skin thing is super fun. So I would say what I'm looking forward to is my skin getting even thinner than it is.
MARTIN: And I can imagine, you know, a lot of people think about age, and you get older, and you care less and less about what people think. But I feel like you've already, like - you did that, like, 30, 40 years ago.
CURTIS: I've been doing that my whole life.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
CURTIS: And I'm - and by the way, that's a total lie. And I...
MARTIN: What do you mean, it's a lie?
CURTIS: It's a lie if I don't...
MARTIN: Oh, that you don't care.
CURTIS: If - that I don't care.
MARTIN: Yeah. Right.
CURTIS: Of course I care.
MARTIN: Right.
CURTIS: When I look in the mirror, I am looking at the problem. I'm looking at the solution. You know, I can't filter the mirror. You know, the deep - Elvis Costello, he has a song called "The Deep Dark Truthful Mirror (ph)." And the deep, dark, truthful mirror is coming for all of us. And we can pretend it isn't, and we can cosmeceutically (ph) industrial complex blow it out somehow, either through surgery or stuff and, you know.
MARTIN: Yeah.
CURTIS: We can alter reality. I mean, I've been geschrei-ing (ph) - Yiddish word - about this for a long time. I've been talking about this since 2001, when I did the cover of More magazine in my underwear...
MARTIN: Yeah.
CURTIS: ...And said to everybody, this is what I look like in my underwear. This is what I look like.
MARTIN: No photoshopping.
CURTIS: But...
MARTIN: Yeah. Just your body.
CURTIS: No. But then - but that was photoshopping. Remember, photoshopping is like your 8-track.
MARTIN: Right.
CURTIS: It's now...
MARTIN: Compared to where we are digitally (ph).
CURTIS: ...AI-altered...
MARTIN: Yeah.
CURTIS: ...Face tuning. But my...
MARTIN: Yeah.
CURTIS: ...Point is simply you can't hide the truth. We are who we are. And I - that's what I have tried to - when I say I don't care, I don't care about hiding the truth anymore. That's what I am for. And if that's ultimately what I get to represent in this lifetime, then I will feel it was a life well lived.
DETROW: You can watch that entire conversation with Jamie Lee Curtis on YouTube by searching for @nprwildcard. "Ella McCay" is out now. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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