The term “nepo baby” has been catching on for the past year or so, as young social media users become increasingly aware of how many figures in the entertainment industry have famous parents—and as stars with famous parents get more questions about the extent to which familial ties have given them a leg up. Some so-called nepo babies have downplayed those ties… but not Jamie Lee Curtis. The Oscar nominee and and freshly-minted SAG Award winner for best supporting actress, for her turn as Deirdre in A24's Everything Everywhere All at Once, has made a point of leaning into her Hollywood pedigree, mentioning her famous parents at multiple stops along the campaign trail this awards season.

"I know you look at me and think, Well, nepo baby, that’s why she’s there, and I totally get it,” said Curtis while accepting her SAG Award Sunday night. “But the truth of the matter is: I’m 64 years old, and this is just amazing.”

Curtis was born in 1958 to Hollywood royalty Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Tony Curtis, née Bernard Schwartz, was the son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants; he went on to become a major film actor, starring in classics like Sweet Smell of Success and Some Like It Hot. Janet Leigh's maternal grandparents immigrated from Denmark, and she too went on to become one of Hollywood's brightest starlets, starring in Bye Bye Birdie, The Manchurian Candidate, and most famously, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Curtis and Leigh divorced in 1962. 

“I’m wearing the wedding ring that my father gave my mother. They hated each other, by the way, at the end of the whole thing,” Curtis said onstage at the SAGs. “But my sister Kelly [Curtis] and I were born from love. My father was from Hungary and my mother was from Denmark, and they had nothing, and they became these monstrous stars in this industry.”

When nepotism discourse reached a fever pitch in December of last year—thanks to New York’s “Year of the Nepo Baby" cover story—Curtis seemed miffed by the term, which she said was designed to “diminish and denigrate and hurt.” At the time, Curtis posted a photo of herself as a child with her older sister Kelly and their parents. “I have been a professional actress since I was 19 years old so that makes me an OG Nepo Baby,” reads the caption. “I've never understood, nor will I, what qualities got me hired that day, but since my first two lines on Quincy as a contract player at Universal Studios to this last spectacular creative year some 44 years later, there's not a day in my professional life that goes by without my being reminded that I am the daughter of movie stars. The current conversation about nepo babies is just designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.”

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In the ensuing weeks, though, Curtis has seemed to embrace her “nepo baby” status, making a point to bring up the specific term multiple times along the campaign trail. Curtis choked back tears in a recent conversation with Vanity Fair’s David Canfield on our Little Gold Men podcast, drawing a parallel between her mother making Psycho and her own career starring in the Halloween franchise. 

“I have followed—nepo baby!—in my parents’ footsteps. In my mother’s case, literally followed her," Curtis told Canfield. "Yet their fame and success was always—to me, their stardom at the time was so ginormous that even though I’ve had fantastic success, I never thought I would reach their level. That was never even—I mean, just not even.”

On Little Gold Men, Curtis also made a point to note that both her parents came from “nothing.” 

“My father being raised on the streets of New York by a tailor who immigrated from Hungary, and my mother being raised in Stockton, California by immigrants from Denmark," she said. “Both of them found their way to the top of the pile of this industry, and both of them were nominated for Oscars. And all of a sudden they were my parents, and they were welcoming me.” Curtis went on to say that her family lineage was the “absolute first thing that [she thought of” after receiving the news that she had received her first career Oscar nomination. "How thrilled my grandparents would be, how thrilled my parents would be for this moment for their daughter.”

Curtis spoke again about her Hollywood pedigree when she was honored at the Santa Barbra Film Festival earlier this month, alongside Cate Blanchette and Angela Bassett.  “I know all the ‘nepo baby’ jokes, believe me. I’ve heard them all. It’s fine. I don’t care,” said Curtis to the festival oers during a Q and A. While she claimed to be over those digs, Curtis went on to discuss the more ephemeral advantages of nepotism, like the knowledge she was able to glean from her parents as they both struggled with getting typecast as their careers progressed.  “I watched both my parents deal with pigeonholing, and I knew that if I had continued doing horror films, I would not get to do other work,” she said. “So, I made a conscious choice to do the last Halloween 2, and then say no more.” (Curtis eventually returned to the Halloween franchise two decades later.)

With her surprise SAG win, Curtis shook up the fairly unsettled best supporting actress category, triumphing over her Oscar competitors Stephanie Hsu, Hong Chau, Kerry Condon, and presumed front-runner Angela Bassett. It's anyone's guess what tipped Curtis over the edge at the SAGs, but her evolution from defensive to embracing her “nepo baby” roots might just wind up charming Oscar voters, too.