Jamie Lee Curtis recalls a DP’s remark that led to plastic surgery at 25

Jamie Lee Curtis revisits a painful chapter in her early career in a recent interview.

In 1985, Curtis, the daughter of Hollywood legends Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis had come a long way from her iconic screen debut in 1978’s Halloween, but hadn’t yet starred in the string of hits that would establish her as a major star in her own right, including True Lies, Trading Places, and A Fish Called Wanda, for which she received her first major award nomination.

A remark from the cinematographer of the film Perfect, which released that year, altered the course of her life, the Academy Award winner, 66, recounted to Sharyn Alfonsi on Sunday’s episode of CBS news program 60 Minutes.

“He was like, ‘Yeah I’m not shooting her today. Her eyes are baggy.’ I was 25. For him to say that was very embarrassing. So as soon as the movie finished, I ended up having some plastic surgery,” Curtis said.

Directed by James Bridges, Perfect tells the story of reporter Adam Lawrence (John Travolta), who falls for an aerobics instructor named Jessie Wilson (Curtis) while out on assignment. The film was shot by the legendary Gordon Willis, the two-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer behind such films as All the President’s Men, Manhattan, and The Godfather trilogy.

When asked how the decision to proceed with an operation worked out, Curtis responded, “Not well… That’s just not what you want to do when you’re 25 or 26. I regretted it immediately and have kind of, sort of regretted it since.”

Curtis has named Willis as the man behind the comments in the past, and detailed how the impact of his remark didn’t lead to just cosmetic surgery.

“One day, I was on the movie Perfect, and Gordon Willis, the great cameraman, looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I’m not shooting her today,'” she told The New Yorker in 2019. “I was puffy that day, for whatever reason. I was mortified. Right after that movie I went and had an eye job. That’s when I found Vicodin, and the cycle of addiction began with that.”

“I became very enamored with the warm bath of an opiate,” Curtis continued to Alfonsi. “You know, drank a little bit, never to excess, never any big public demonstrations. I was very quiet, very private about it. But it it became a dependency for sure.”

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Curtis says she’s now 26 years sober, and is able to look back on that time of herself with less pain.

“Of course, I look really good in a leotard,” Curtis said, referencing a scene from Perfect that has now become infamous in which the lycra-clad star guides Travolta and a room full of fitness nuts through a gyration-heavy routine. “Believe me, I’ve seen enough pictures of me in that leotard where even I go like, ‘Really? Come on.'”

Curtis even recreated the scenes with Jimmy Fallon playing Travolta’s role on a recent episode of The Tonight Show.

“It went on like seven minutes,” Curtis joked about filming the original scene. “It’s a lot.”

You can watch the rest of Curtis’ 60 Minutes interview above.