One Piece Season 2’s Jamie Lee Curtis Casting Campaign Gets Promising Response From Showrunner

Summary

• Matt Owens, the co-showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s One Piece, is excited about Jamie Lee Curtis’ interest in portraying Doctor Kureha.
• Curtis herself initiated the fan campaign to play Kureha, citing her desire to take on the role before the show even premiered.
• Owens revealed that he sent Curtis fan art imagining her as Kureha and stated that the show is willing to enter talks with her once the SAG-AFTRA strike is over.

Netflix’s One Piece showrunner and executive producer, Matt Owens, offers a promising response to Jamie Lee Curtis’ interest in portraying Doctor Kureha. Netflix recently renewed One Piece for season 2, opening up many possibilities for potential characters and castings. Fans of the show have already started proposing their ideas for characters expected to appear in season 2. However, Jamie Lee Curtis’ fan casting as Kureha is the one fan casting that has garnered the most traction.

Amid the fan campaign, Curtis took to Instagram to join the calls for her star in One Piece season 2, though noting she wouldn’t begin her lobbying for the role of Doctor Kureha until the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Owens subsequently took to the comments on the post to express his excitement for her interest in the show, even revealing he was the one who sent her the fan art imagining her as Kureha. Additionally, he indicated that Curtis won’t even have to lobby for the role because the show is already willing to enter talks with her as soon as the strikes end with fair contracts and Hollywood gets back to work again.

Jamie Lee Curtis’ One Piece Fan Casting As Kureha Explained

Now that both Owens and Curtis have expressed interest in having her portray Kureha, things are starting to come together. However, some may be wondering how this happened. Surprisingly, Curtis herself was the one to begin the campaign, citing her desire to play Doctor Kureha well before the show premiered as she felt she was too old to “get to play Nico Robin.” After the show’s season 2 renewal, the fan campaign for Curtis’ casting as Kureha in One Piece began gaining momentum, with the additional confirmation of Tony Tony Chopper’s entrance raising its intensity.

In One Piece, Kureha is the adoptive mother of Chopper, who trained him to be a doctor. Hence, if Chopper joins the crew in season 2, it would only be suitable for Kureha to make her entrance, too. Meanwhile, given Curtis’ skill and the fact that she has shown an affinity for more eccentric roles, she seemed like the perfect choice for fans to play Kureha, an elderly doctor with a young heart and an unusual way of treating patients.

With both Curtis and her fans proving very vocal in her joining the Netflix adaptation, the sole missing piece of the puzzle was One Piece‘s crew being onboard for her casting. Now that Owens has responded to her interest with similar enthusiasm, the only obstacle between One Piece tapping Curtis as Kureha are the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. These unions have been on strike for several months as they fight for better wages, job security, and safeguards against AI. If the AMPTP grants workers what they deserve, Curtis as Kureha in One Piece may soon become a reality.

Source: Jamie Lee Curtis & Matt Owens/Instagram