Watch Jamie Lee Curtis Impress Jimmy Fallon With Her Surprise Peter Falk Impression | Video
Jamie Lee Curtis stopped by “The Tonight Show” on Wednesday to promote her new Prime Video series “Scarpetta,” but ended up impressing host Jimmy Fallon with her surprise Peter Falk impression in the process.
While discussing her history on the NBC late night show, the Oscar winner recalled indirectly appearing on “The Tonight Show” very early in her career, thanks to a small guest role on “Columbo.”
“I was on ‘The Tonight Show’ [because of my] second job in show business,” Curtis said. “I was under contract at Universal, and I did a couple shows. My first job was a ‘Quincy’ [episode] and then my second job was a ‘Columbo’ [episode], and I played a waitress in a diner.” When “Columbo” star Peter Falk later appeared on “The Tonight Show” to promote the show, he brought with him a clip from Curtis’ episode.
“So I was on ‘The Tonight Show’ [with] my second job,” she proudly remembered. When Fallon asked her what her “Columbo” scene was like, the actress proceeded to debut a, frankly, very good Falk impression. “I play a bitchy waitress, and he walks in with this donut,” Curtis said. “Of course, [my character] says, ‘You can’t eat that here,’ And [Columbo] goes, ‘Oh, oh, yeah, oh, I’m sorry. Oh, oh, oh, I’m sorry,’ and then he hands me the donut and then I glare at him.”
“I come back [later] and I go, ‘Have you decided what you want?'” Curtis continued. “He goes, ‘Oh, oh, I’m sorry. Oh, uh… I’ll have a donut.'”
All these years later, the actress now stars opposite Nicole Kidman in “Scarpetta,” based on the series of popular books by author Patricia Cornwell, with whom Curtis happens to be friends. “I’m a producer now, so one day I said to her, ‘Hey, what’s up with ‘Scarpetta?’ And she was like, ‘Nothing,'” Curtis shared. After convincing Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum to produce the project with her, they landed on Kidman to play lead forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta.
“It turns out Nicole has always wanted to play Scarpetta,” Curtis recalled. “We hear she wants to be in it. But then, of course, she says to me, ‘And you’re producing the show, Jamie?’ And I’m like, ‘Yes.’ She goes, ‘And you’re in it.'” Up until that moment, Curtis had not planned on appearing in the Prime Video series. It was Kidman’s conviction, however, that convinced the “Halloween” star.
“That’s how I am in this show, because Nicole Kidman said, ‘And, of course, you’re in it,'” Curtis revealed. “It’s called the Nicole Kidman effect. It’s an extraordinary thing. Right away, we got a two-season pickup at Amazon. Like that [snaps fingers]. Because that’s Nicole Kidman.”
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