After Jamie Lee Curtis expressed her hopes of playing Dr. Kureha in Netflix‘s live-action One Piece series, the adaptation’s co-showrunner has commented on the possibility.
Is the Netflix One Piece team trying to bring Jamie Lee Curtis to the show?
In an interview with Deadline, One Piece co-showrunner Matt Owens was asked about adding Curtis to the cast to play the role of Dr. Kureha — a maternal figure and mentor for Straw Hat Pirates doctor Tony Tony Chopper. The actress previously spoke about how she’d love to play the role, as she’s already a big fan of One Piece.
Owens explained that the staff is “trying to manifest it” and that once the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike concludes, they’ll start having “real conversations” with Curtis, noting that the staff of the series is “writing for her” at this point.
“We have opportunities to stunt cast some roles, some rules that are very important, and it came out that Jamie Lee Curtis is a One Piece fan,” Owens stated. “As soon as she said that, we were like, okay, we have to try and get her on the show. What can we do? And Doctor Kureha, very luckily, is a character who is coming up in our story, and is someone who is perfect for Jamie Lee Curtis. So we tried to start manifesting this dream of ours. After she won her Oscar, the writers room sent her a figure of Doctor Kureha with a nice note that said, ‘Congratulations on your statue, here’s another one to put next to it. Hope to speak to you soon.’
“When she reposted that, it got a lot of fan interest, and I commented on it. We’re trying to manifest it. Yes, as of right now, SAG is still striking so there have not been real conversations. But as soon as there can be, I’m ready. I will take her out to dinner, we’ll talk about it. We’ll do all of it because at this point we’re writing for her — we really, really want her to come and play with us in Season 2.”
Based on Eiichiro Oda’s manga series of the same name, One Piece follows the Straw Hat Pirates on their quest to find the world’s greatest treasure. The synopsis reads: “In a seafaring world, a young pirate captain sets out with his crew to attain the title of Pirate King and to discover the mythical treasure known as the ‘One Piece.’”
The cast includes Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, Emily Rudd as Nami, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, Taz Skylar as Sanji, Vincent Regan as Monkey D. Garp, Jeff Ward as Buggy the Clown, and Morgan Davies as Koby. All eight episodes of One Piece Season 1 are now available to stream on Netflix.
