Suit up, show up and celebrate the lives, activism and legacy of Rob and Michele Reiner.
That’s how Jamie Lee Curtis is approaching the night of Nov. 8, a date that will find her become the inaugural recipient of the Michele and Rob Reiner Champion for Change Award during the Children’s Institute’s Cape & Gown Gala. It’s an honor created in partnership between the Children’s Institute, its president and CEO Martine Singer (Michele’s sister) and the couple’s children, Jake and Romy Reiner, to recognize the Reiners’ “lifelong commitment to improving the lives of children and families and strengthening communities across Los Angeles, throughout California and beyond.”
When news broke of the honor and that Curtis would be its first recipient, the Oscar winner said she was “deeply honored” to be selected as it’s a testament to the legacy of the late Reiners, a couple she had known for decades and with whom she shared a duty for activism. (She and her husband, Christopher Guest, were also married at Rob’s home in 1984, and he served as the best man.) “They didn’t just create together. They lived a life of service, building something greater than themselves and giving so much to the world around them. And that is something worth honoring again and again,” Curtis said in a statement when she was announced as the award recipient. “The world needs so much more of what they gave us: their love, their courage and their joy. I am forever grateful to carry a small part of their legacy forward.”
She’s hoping that joy surfaces at the upcoming gala. “Rob and Michele’s [lives are] celebratory. They would not want this [event] to be morbid and funerallike. It has to be a celebration,” Curtis told The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview about the award and the Reiners. “So, I’m going to suit up, show up, do my thing, stand there in community and say thank you to them.”
Below, she opens up on how she’s walking through this emotional time by placing a focus on “love and service,” how her appearance at the recent Emmy Awards came to be and the indefatigable nature of the Reiners’ work on a variety of causes: “Every day with them was activism.”
We’re sitting here at the Children’s Institute on Temple Street in Los Angeles for a special reason.
First of all, this institution has been around for 120 years. They’ve been raising money to help children in the City of Angels for 120 years. That alone is enough to kind of be like, “Whoa.” And, of course, we’re here because the Children’s Institute is run by Martine Singer, the sister of Michele Singer Reiner and sister-in-law of Rob Reiner. We are here at the Children’s Institute specifically because Martine runs the institute and was the sister of Michele Singer Reiner and the sister-in-law of Rob Reiner. Rob and Michele were big supporters of the Children’s Institute, and Martine has been a beautiful, beautiful aunt after that awful experience in December.
Rob and Michele supported the Children’s Institute for years. The institute is having its big event on Nov. 8 and is naming an advocacy award in Rob and Michele’s name. I am the inaugural recipient of that award, and I’m very moved to be so. Today, we came to the institute to be with the children, see more of the programs and have some public conversations about the institute, Rob and Michele and their advocacy for children. Jake Reiner was with me today and did a few press interviews. We’ve been talking about Rob and Michele all day long.
How are you feeling?
Very emotional. We haven’t had a big public group hug yet. There’s the very small circle of family, then their very closest friends and then the concentric circles that go out from there: friends, colleagues, advocates and, finally, the public: people who just loved his movies, loved his television shows and loved his father. The circle gets wider and wider, and none of us have come together yet to grieve this terrible loss. It’s been an emotional day because I’ve been talking about my relationship with them and talking about them in the past, and it’s only nine months later. It’s been difficult but important because we just want to carry on their work.
We’re also sitting here right after the beautiful moment at the Emmys when you offered some remarks about Rob, and the camera panned to the audience to show how touched people were. And we could see how emotional you were. Now feels like a good time to have this conversation.
I’m obviously a close friend of theirs; we got married at Rob’s house on Dec. 18, 1984. Rob was the best man. My late sister Kelly was my maid of honor. So we are close. Rob is our daughter Annie’s godfather. When Michele married Rob, she and Rob became my daughter’s godparents. We have a closeness, of course. What I’m trying to say is that I felt a responsibility to represent everyone — strangers, fans, colleagues, friends, close friends and family — in that moment at the Emmys. I was fine and happy to do it.
I went to the rehearsal, and they were playing “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” There’s an exercise in grief about desensitizing yourself, so I listened to that song for the next day, trying to get used to it. It’s so moving to me naturally, and then it was sung live. It was very challenging because it was challenging enough to represent everyone and try to honor, in this case, particularly Rob’s passing, but I also have feelings of my own.
I was happy to do it, but it was a little tougher than I anticipated. The way media works, words like “breaking silence” and “first comments after” start being a little strange. I’m here for the Children’s Institute. I’m here to support their work. I’m going to be at the event to support the work that Rob and Michele did, and it shouldn’t be about me. And yet I’ve been the one talking a lot about them. So it’s been a little strange because it’s a very private grief, and yet I’m a public-facing person. I’m trying to walk that line a little bit.
The work of the Children’s Institute is focused on so many pillars of lifting up children and families, with education and literacy chief among them, issues that are also very important to you and your work as a children’s author. How do you wrap your head around the way all of these threads are connected?
Love and service aren’t compartmentalized. They’re expansive. It’s not about me at all. I just read a beautiful book by Ann Patchett called Whistler — the new novel. It’s about impermanence at its core. I’m not a particularly religious person, but I’m sober and it can’t be about me. It has to be about love and service. If we’re just expanding love and service in whatever way we can, that’s what they did, that’s what I try to do, that’s what you try to do. It’s just what we do. It’s what these people do. It’s what Martine does here in this office.
And that’s what you’re doing. I’ll point out that you’re wearing a “Love and Service” pin right now.
I wear it often, particularly when we need to be reminded: What are we doing? What are we doing? I don’t need more attention. I’m pretty comfortable with who I am, and I know who I am pretty honestly. I’ve reached a ripe old age, I’ve had a good amount of psychoanalysis, I’m sober and I’m a grandma. I’m pretty clear that if love and service is at the center of what I do, then I’m good. I can take a little of the energy and appreciate it, and really want to reflect it back onto Rob and Michele and what they dedicated their lives to — the betterment of the world because they were in it.
Do you remember any conversations you had with them about service or activism?
Every day with them was activism. They were enraged at the way the current administration had decimated progressive policies toward children, women, people of color, gay people and transgender people. I mean, don’t even get me started. Rob was a firebrand. I can talk a good game, and I’m a passionate advocate, but Rob had the acumen and the political savvy. I don’t have political savvy. He was able to find common ground with people he disagreed with and was a powerful leader.
Many of the times Rob stepped into that position of power were because Michele Reiner said, “Rob, come on. You can do this. You need to do this.” Much of that advocacy was fueled by Michele saying, “You need to do this.” She was the lighter of that firebrand. She got it hot, and then Robbie took it. That was his great skill, but it was a partnership and that’s just impressive.
Some of the work you do with Children’s Hospital Los Angeles overlaps with the institute. How did you decide that CHLA would be one of the focuses of your activism and advocacy? You’ve raised millions for CHLA through My Hand in Yours, and it’s a hospital you’ve supported for many years.
I was working on a forgettable movie called Grandview, USA, about demolition derby in Pontiac, Illinois. We shot there, and I was in town for 12 weeks, which is a long time. In Pontiac, there was a family whose daughter, Lori Tull, [had one of the first successful heart transplants]. The town was putting on a fundraiser for Lori and her family because, at the time, the insurance company said it was experimental surgery and wouldn’t pay for it. It was an enormous amount of money.
The movie company joined forces with the town because we were there for 12 weeks. We sold kisses at booths; it was like a fair. Lori and I became friends. She ultimately had a second heart transplant at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and died at 19, but we stayed close. I made a connection to that hospital in Pittsburgh and, for many years, went back to work with them. I became friends with another patient named Katie Westbrook, who had bone cancer.
If you’ve ever seen a picture of me in a pink wig, I wear a pink wig when I do children’s hospital work. That was Katie’s wig. She wore it when she lost her hair because of chemotherapy. When she died, her mother gave me the wig. I wear it to remind people: This is what this young girl wore while she was fighting for her life. She was saying to everybody, “Look at me,” because if you’re looking at me in this, you understand that I’m fighting for my life here.
I helped them raise a lot of money at the hospital. When I came back from one of my trips to Pittsburgh, I realized, “Wait, I live in Los Angeles.” I cold-called Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and said, “My name’s Jamie Curtis. I’ve been going back and forth to Pittsburgh and working with them for many years, and I live here. I was born and raised here in the City of Angels. What can I do to help you?”
It was right when one of the propositions was going to be on the ballot — one of the children’s hospital bond acts — and I became the face of it. I said, “Yes, I’ll do whatever you want. Commercials? Sure, let’s do commercials for the children’s hospital bond.” It passed, and it raised hundreds of millions of dollars for various children’s hospitals, including CHLA. That began my advocacy with them.
Can you take me back to getting the call for this award?
Martine, Jake and Romy called me this summer when I was away with my family. Martine had texted, “Can you talk? The kids and I want to talk to you about something.” I didn’t know what it was, obviously, but I said, “Yes, of course.” When I called them, the three of them said, “We want to support Martine and the Children’s Institute in the name of our parents and we would like you to receive the inaugural award in their name.”
Obviously, I said yes. When I got back home, it was about trying to connect more dots here at the institute in a way I hadn’t been able to. I’ve been working a lot, so it’s taken me a minute. But, again, we haven’t had a public gathering. This will feel a little bit like that. By the way, this award conversation predated the Emmys. The Emmys happened about a week after the award was discussed.
How did the Emmys appearance come about?
I don’t think they had really thought it through. The weekend before, Rob won an Emmy, and the entire room stood up. So I think they must have been thinking, “Oh, we haven’t really addressed this yet. It’s tricky.” There were so many people lost this year, particularly in television, who had big careers. It was unexpected. I hadn’t planned on that.
The fact that he got it for The Bear, on which you were ferocious, award-winning and incredible — what a moment.
It was. Rob called me and said, “I’ve been offered a part on The Bear. Should I do it?” And I said, “Yes, Robbie, you should absolutely do it.” I didn’t know how that character was going to fit in or who he would be, because obviously I didn’t know any of that. But my experience on the show was transformational. It was a fantastic writing opportunity and something I had never had the opportunity to do before. So I said, “Yes, you should do it.”
You’ll accept the inaugural Michele and Rob Reiner Champion for Change Award in November. How do you approach a speech?
I’m not that girl. I have a poem I may read. It was given to me as a gift by Moye Thompson, a ceramicist whose work I collect. The poem is called “To Be of Use,” by Marge Piercy. Moye imprinted the words of the poem on a bowl, all the way around it — individual letters, the whole poem. Then she took the poem and broke it into individual words and printed those on little pieces of porcelain. It’s a beautiful art piece: the collective poem, with each individual word inside the bowl.
It’s a beautiful poem about activism, about being of use as a person and about the kind of people I like to know. I looked at that beautiful piece of art the other day and thought, “That’s Rob and Michele right there: to be of use.” Stay out of the way. Be of use. Link up and get dirty. Do your work. Get sweaty.
Is that what you think of when you think of them?
Yes. Just to be of use. It brings back to me the song “That’s Why I’m Here” by James Taylor, where he basically says, “That’s why I’m here.” I think, “Why am I here?” I’m here to be of use, to connect people, whatever it is. It’s just service. Love and service. It goes back to love and service. It always will. At the end of the day, it really does.
Congratulations again on the honor.
Thank you. I’m honored — truly honored. I also have to crack jokes. I want to crack some jokes. I don’t want to …
It’s heavy. It’s a lot.
But it doesn’t have to be. It’s not a memorial. This is a celebration of 120 years of an institution showing up for people from ZIP codes that you and I may never visit in the City of Angels. There are probably areas of this city I’ve never been in, you’ve never been in and may never be in, whose residents can come here and get the services and support the Children’s Institute offers. That alone makes it very important that this is a celebration: a celebration of all the years of people like Martine, all the staff and all the teachers I worked with today in the classroom — everyone coming together to help these people.
Rob and Michele’s [lives are] celebratory. I want to make sure that’s included, too. They would not want this to be morbid and funeral-like. It has to be a celebration. So I’m going to suit up, show up, do my thing, stand there in community and say thank you to them.
Beautiful. And John Mayer is going to perform.
John Mayer’s going to perform, and he’s a great communicator, a great singer and a great lyricist.
Knowing he was going to be there made me wonder what Jamie Lee Curtis listens to when she wants to roll up her sleeves. You mentioned James Taylor, but when you’re either doing the work or want to shut off, what music do you turn on?
I’m eclectic as hell. I listen to everything from John Coltrane to yacht rock. You have to remember, I came of age in 1976, ’77 and ’78. ’70s music — the Eagles. Are you kidding? I’ve seen the Eagles documentary 25 times. It’s three hours, by the way. But I’m eclectic: yacht rock, Coltrane, the Eagles and Wyclef Jean. That was two weeks ago. I randomly listened to Sam Sanders and Wyclef Jean was interviewed by him. I want you to download the Sam Sanders podcast — or whatever radio show it is — and listen to his interview with Wyclef Jean.
Drive back to Santa Monica and listen to it. Then download all of the albums Wyclef Jean has just released. You’re going to hear someone with wildly deep, immersive talent. It knocked me sideways. I’ve been obsessed with Wyclef Jean ever since.