Jamie Lee Curtis: Her 10 Best Performances

Curtis teamed up with the dynamic duo of James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in this underrated action film and she practically steals the whole movie.

Curtis plays Helen Tasker, a stay-at-home-wife who has trouble finding adventure in her life and whose husband, Schwarzenegger's Harry, is constantly off on business. What Helen doesn't know is that Harry is actually a spy, and when Harry realizes that Helen is looking for excitement elsewhere in her life, he arranges for her to go on a fake set-up spy mission. Of course, things go wrong and the fake mission turns into a real one where Harry and Helen have to work together to take down some actual terrorists.

Curtis and Schwarzenegger have surprisingly excellent chemistry here, believably playing off each other as husband and wife both in the early sequences in which their marriage has stifled and in the later sequences where they're falling in love all over again. But the real reason Curtis's performance shines so brightly here is because of her uncanny ability to make a character's struggle feel so relatable.

Take for instance the scene in which she gives herself an impromptu makeover just before attempting to seduce a man. It's funny and entertaining, but that's because it feels so relatably real. Curtis' actions never feel staged, instead seeming like impromptu off-the-cuff decisions thanks to her comedic timing. In a sequence like this, her acting is reminiscent of the great silent actors like Chaplin or Keaton, and her performance makes this movie.