Scarpetta stars Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis open up on the Prime Video series

When Jamie Lee Curtis’ blockbuster film True Lies premiered worldwide in 1994, it would have been improbable to think that some 30 years later she would be giddy about a TV show – about as improbable as performing her iconic helicopter stunt without special effects.

“I guarantee you, when I was … literally hanging under a helicopter above the Florida Keys over the Seven Mile Bridge in Florida, I did not imagine I’d be sitting in New York City that many years later with Nicole Kidman, not only being co-bosses on a show, but then also playing her slutty sister. I was not imagining that as my future,” Curtis says.

The Oscar winners produced and star in Scarpetta, a new mystery crime series based on Patricia Cornwell’s popular books and now streaming on Prime Video.

Curtis credits Kidman as one of the major Hollywood players who helped shrink the gulf between perceptions of film and TV roles with prestige series such as Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers.

Kidman, 58, plays the titular character Dr Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist who solves complex murders. Upon returning to Virginia, she comes across cases eerily reminiscent of one three decades earlier that catapulted her career forward.

To prepare for the role, Kidman spent time with a medical examiner in Tennessee, where she learned how to hold a scalpel and identify and dissect organs.