Jamie Lee Curtis Says She's Met Real-Life People Exactly Like Her Everything Everywhere All At Once Character
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" will go down not just as one of the best movies of 2022–95% Fresh among the critics and 89% Fresh among the fans on Rotten Tomatoes–but as one of the best movies of the 21st century. One reason why is because it delivers surprises at every turn. While "Everything Everywere All at Once" does have a zany plot, full of alternate dimensions where everyone has hot dogs for fingers or where rocks talk, it also has smaller, more everyday delights. One of these is the character Deirdre Beaubeirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis).
Early in the film, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), Gong Gong (James Hong), and Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) are called in to the local tax office, where Deirdre audits them. As a character, Deirdre is the sort of person who clings to the one shred of power they have and lords that power over everyone they can. She wields this power in small ways, like demanding that everyone she audits complete their paperwork perfectly, or eating at her desk while delivering terrible news to people. She's so desperate to feel validated that she proudly shows off her three "Auditor of the Month" awards, even though they look, well, let's just go with "highly questionable."
A character like that could easily veer into caricature territory, but Jamie Lee Curtis was able to find the humanity in Deirdre. Here's whom Curtis based the character on.
Jamie Lee Curtis based the character off several people she met in recovery
Curtis touched on Deirdre's origins in an interview with Variety, which she did alongside Colin Farrell. She explained that she met several people like Deirdre while in recovery for substance abuse. To Curtis, Deirdre is someone who uses power "as a replacement for having any actual human contact, any love or affection." These are people, Curtis says, whose only sense of identity comes from their job–and when they leave their job at the end of each day, they have nothing to go home to.
According to the American Addiction Centers, the "Halloween" star struggled with alcohol and opiate addiction until 1999, when she committed to sobriety and began attending meetings. She went public about her addiction two years later in an interview with "Redbook," and she's still sober today. Elsewhere in the Variety interview, Curtis said she hopes her legacy will be her sobriety, above all else.
Clearly a lot of work went into Deirdre, and it paid off. Curtis was just nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance By An Actress In A Supporting Role In Any Motion Picture for the part (per Rotten Tomatoes). Although she's never been nominated for an Oscar, plenty of publications are predicting that she'll win (via IndieWire).