The stars of Disney's new 'Haunted Mansion' remake tell ET why they're already ready to work together again!
Tiffany Haddish and Jamie Lee Curtis cannot get enough of each other! Speaking with ET ahead of the release of their Haunted Mansion reboot, the co-stars shared that they're already thinking ahead to their next project together.
When asked where she would want to go with Haddish on a trip, Curtis revealed that she and the Girls Trip star have hatched a plan for a joint venture that will take them all the way to New York City. "You know, the best show business [often] comes from junkets, apparently. So we're going to remake The Odd Couple on Broadway. So I can get an EGOT," the recently minted Oscar winner says. "Now, it's not me, it's just other people mentioning those initials and I'm now going, 'OK, how do we get the T?' 'Cause I can't sing."
But as Haddish helpfully pointed out, Curtis doesn't need to sing to snag the remaining letters of the esteemed EGOT title. "You just have to know how to act, and we got to get butts in the seat at the theater. I know how to do that," she tells her co-star.
Until the duo works out the logistics of their remake of the Neil Simon classic, they told ET's Kevin Frazier all about the remake they've already done the work for: the Justin Simien-directed Haunted Mansion.
Much like the 2003 film of the same name, Haunted Mansion is based on the Walt Disney theme park attraction. The supernatural comedy follows Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son, Travis (Chase W. Dillon), who enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts (LaKeith Stanfield, Haddish, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito) to help rid their home of supernatural squatters.
Curtis, who plays Madame Leota in the film, told ET that she feels like the movie "checks all the boxes."
"It's funny, it's spooky, it's scary and it has the nostalgia," she adds. "See, the great thing about Disney is I'm 65 years old, I remember the first time I went on that ride. Tiffany remembers [her] first time and the magic of going to Disneyland and being in that environment. There's a beautiful nostalgia that I also think is a part of this."
The magic was alive on set as well; Haddish -- who plays Harriet, a psychic -- and Curtis shared how the costume department crafted their outfits to fit perfectly to their bodies.
"It's so built to your body. The kind of costuming that Jeffrey Kurland did, and the way that Justin worked with Jeffrey and came up with a visual style for the movie, was very exciting to me," Curtis says. "I've never been a part of a movie that had that level of expertise and costume making. This is old school costume building. So, they had a hat maker make those headdresses, it fit me like a baseball hat. There was no pin, there was nothing holding that thing onto my head. The way it sat on my head was because it was made for me."
And with a film like Haunted Mansion, there are tons of tricks and mysteries that production does to make the magic onscreen happen. Curtis vowed to keep mum on any specifics, sharing that she likes "the magic of movies."
"I like that people don't know. I don't want to know how anything is done because I want to believe what I'm seeing," she explains. "And we're so used to seeing behind the scenes -- I don't want it. I want people to believe everything they're seeing, it's the magic. I want to believe in Disneyland. I want to go to Disneyland, I want to believe it."
Haddish is more inclined to stay grounded in reality, saying that she appreciates being able to draw a line in the stand and tell people, "This is make-believe, I'm doing it for them and I'm a different human."
"I am what you call an energy producer, OK? I produce energy. And if I could find roles that are close to who I am, great. But when I was in the movie Bad Trip, [I was like] that's not me at all, that's not who I am. I don't need people thinking that's the character I really am," she shares.
While Haddish might not be a physic, she has had a real-life encounter with the supernatural. Somewhat.
The comedian previously told ET that she initially believed her real-life house was haunted.
"My house, I just bought this house not too long ago. It was built in 1923. It's an old house. It's almost 100 years old," she said. "When I first went in there, I was hearing stuff and my dog was barking at the walls and I was like, 'Oh, this house haunted. It's old. Let me burn some sage, whatever.' Then all of a sudden I would smell things like, 'What is that smell? Eh, what is that?'"
It wasn't spirits that were responsible for the sounds and odors, though.
"Turns out, rats," Haddish said before joking, "Got me an exterminator. I was about to get an exorcism in there and get that house cleaned, get spirits cleaned out, but then found out it was rats."
Fans can find out how Haddish deals with the ghouls onscreen when Haunted Mansion hits theaters on July 28.
This interview was done prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, which began on July 13, 2023.
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