Everything, Everywhere All at Once, Photo by Allyson Riggs
Jamie Lee Curtis, an Oscar winner, has made it known that she loves the One Piece anime, expressing her love for Tony Tony Chopper and her desire to play Nico Robin in live action version of One Piece.
Although the actress is not the ideal age for Robin, there has been an increasing demand for her to play Dr. Kureha, Chopper’s mentor, in the Netflix live-action series’ second season, which she matches.
During the strikes, Curtis and showrunner Matt Owens had a social media conversation that suggested they would work towards a deal once they were finished. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. Becky Clements, who serves as a producer on the series along with other shows like Snowpiercer and Physical, tells Deadline that Curtis couldn’t do the role due to scheduling:
“She loves the show. She has too many films and TV shows that she’s going into production on so our production dates aren’t going to work. She definitely wanted to do it but she’s got deals in first position, and it just became complicated.”
Asked if somebody is playing Kureha in the new season, Clements says: “We have found an amazing person” which indicates someone has been cast – just not yet announced.
Filming for the second season is currently in its third week in South Africa and will continue until December. According to Clements, between 900 and 1,200 people are involved in the production, which involves multiple episodes shooting simultaneously and two units working simultaneously.
They were hit by a lot of rain initially, but they anticipated it because it’s winter in South Africa. Thus, they have modified their schedule to finish the majority of our exterior work by the end of the year. The first season’s blue-sky visuals will be retained, and there will be ample sun-drenched exteriors for scenes.
“We will absolutely maintain the creative and all the exteriors and blue sky and visual effects. We recently moved something to the interior, and we agreed that in the end, that interior scene doesn’t feel as dynamic as we need it to. We’ll find a place on the schedule when our weather gets better to shoot it again.
Netflix, they understand, they are good partners when we have to make those last-minute decisions. July, August are the tougher months, and we adjusted our schedule so that the majority of our exterior stuff will shoot closer to the end of the year, summer.”
It’s likely the One Piece second season won’t arrive on the service until late 2025 or early 2026.