Jamie Lee Curtis says filming New Girl was “awful” — here’s what made her hate it
Jamie Lee Curtis has called filming New Girl “awful” — and she’s explained why.
If you ever wondered why Jamie Lee Curtis rarely pops up in your favourite American sitcoms these days, you are not alone. Turns out, she is rather outspoken about it—especially when it comes to her brief run as Jess’s mum on New Girl. Curtis, never one to mince words, recently gave some pretty blunt thoughts about why her stint on the show was, in her own words, proper miserable.
Curtis told Entertainment Weekly at the NBCUniversal Summer Backlot Experience: "I did a single camera [sitcom], which I hated. I mean, great show, New Girl, very funny… It’s a good show, but doing it is just like doing a movie. You know, you’ve got a camera crew, and nobody laughs. It’s silent, and it’s awful. For me, awful. Single-camera comedies, for me, not fun."
The main issue here is the single-camera format—that thing you get with New Girl, Modern Family, The Office, and the rest of that crop. No live studio audience, no laughter, no in-the-moment energy, just a lot of standing around quietly while everyone pretends to laugh at nothing. If you come from a live, multi-camera background as Curtis does, it is apparently about as cheerful as a wet weekend in March.
Back to Old Favourites
Curtis even admitted she has 'begged' her agents to steer her clear of anything single-cam for years. What she really wants is another multi-camera comedy—the sort with an audience, proper laughs, and some interaction that is not just you, a boom operator, and a table of snacks. This is not a new phase, either. Go back to the late 80s/early 90s, and she was already a familiar face on Anything But Love, which ran for four series on ABC, playing the lead, Hannah Miller, with Richard Lewis as her on-again-off-again.
- Curtis had several appearances on New Girl as Joan Day across the series’ seven seasons, though she was never a series regular.
- Her old sitcom, Anything But Love, aired from 1989–1992 on ABC—firmly in the classic multi-cam format.
- Single-camera sitcoms like New Girl have become the norm in the last couple of decades, but they are not for everyone, evidently.
Jamie Lee’s New Project (Multi-Cam This Time)
After all these years, it seems the sitcom gods have finally answered. Curtis is set for a proper return to the multi-cam format with Newlyweds, NBC’s latest go at the genre. The show stars real married couple Téa Leoni and Tim Daly, with Curtis as a character called Claudia. She does not just act this time—she is an executive producer as well. The show’s being billed as a 'mature romance' about a whirlwind wedding between a free-spirited woman and a straight-laced professor, created by Gail Lerner.
Newlyweds launches on NBC on 23 October 2026 at 8:30pm ET.
If you feel the need to catch up on Curtis as Jess’s mum, the entirety of New Girl is currently streaming on Hulu—laugh track not included.