Jamie Lee Curtis Assumed ‘Knives Out’ Co-Star Ana de Armas Was ‘Unsophisticated’ and ‘Had Just Come From Cuba’
There are some thoughts you should probably just keep to yourself, and this revelation from Jamie Lee Curtis is one of them.
According to IndieWire, Curtis told Elle that upon meeting Ana de Armas when they co-starred in Knives Out, she assumed "because she had come from Cuba, that she had just arrived."
"I made an assumption that she was an inexperienced, unsophisticated young woman," Curtis shared. "That first day, I was like, ‘Oh, what are your dreams?'”
Curtis prefaced the statement by saying she had "real embarrassment" about the faux pas.
Social media users had some thoughts on the statement, with one person commenting, "She should be embarrassed."
"WHAT IN THE ACTUAL F---?????" another fan tweeted.
"The casual racism of Jamie Lee Curtis re: Ana De Armas is... both infuriating and totally expected. It's cringy as hell, and also exactly in line with how Americans are told and taught to think about both Cuba specifically and Hispanic people generally," one user wrote on Twitter.
"What's wild about this Jamie Lee Curtis/Ana de Armas debacle is that the reporter genuinely just asked Curtis what she thought of Armas. Why'd she have to go and say all that??????" another fan questioned.
In reality, at the time Knives Out came out in 2019 de Armas was already making a name for herself in Hollywood, and had been working in Spanish and Cuban projects for over a decade.
But Curtis didn't stop there. Apparently, she also offered to introduce de Armas to Steven Spielberg and her godchildren, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, because she was so impressed with de Armas' performance.
However, it turned out de Armas already knew Jake and had several connections with high-profile film industry actors and producers.
"She is not as fancy as maybe the advertisements would have you believe. She leans in, interested; talking to her is kind of give-and-take. She’s curious and asks a lot of questions," Curtis continued.
It seems the embarrassing assumption hasn't put a damper on the two stars' friendship, though.
Curtis and de Armas still keep in touch and Curtis even got a sneak peek of de Armas' role in the upcoming Marilyn Monroe biopic, Blonde.
Curtis' praise for de Armas as Monroe was abundant: "I dropped to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. Ana was completely gone. She was Marilyn.”
The connection is an interesting one, since Curtis' father Tony Curtis acted in Some Like It Hot alongside Monroe herself.