Last year, during the SAG-AFTRA strike, Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis had expressed her intention to personally lobby for the role of Dr. Kureha in One Piece Season 2 after fans on social media had been vocal about their desire to see Curtis portray the fan-favorite character.
However, nearly a year since Curtis’ Instagram post, it has been officially confirmed that the acclaimed actress is no longer attached to the role due to scheduling conflicts with other projects. At the moment, Curtis has a number of movies lined up for her, including the live-action Borderlands movie, the Freaky Friday sequel, Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, and Paul Greengrass’ The Lost Bus.
Who will be playing Dr. Kureha in One Piece Season 2?
Speaking with Deadline, producer Becky Clements confirmed that Curtis “definetly wanted” to play Kureha in One Piece Season 2. However, the Netflix show’s production wasn’t able to match with Curtis’ schedule.
“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,” Clements said. “She definitely wanted to do it, but she’s got deals in first position, and it just became complicated.”
Even though fans would be disappointed with Curtis not being able to fulfill her popular Kureha fan cast, Clements assures fans that they “have found an amazing person” to portray Tony Tony Chopper’s mentor/mother figure. Netflix has yet to reveal the full cast members of One Piece Season 2, including the actors who will play Chopper, Kureha, Princess Vivi, Bon Clay, Nico Robin, Crocodile, and more
Based on Eiichiro Oda’s manga series, One Piece is written and executive produced by Steven Maeda (The X-Files) and Matt Owens (Agents of SHIELD), with Owens and Joe Tracz serving as showrunners for Season 2. The series is led by Iñaki Godoy as Monkey D. Luffy, Mackenyu as Roronoa Zoro, Emily Rudd as Nami, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, and Taz Skylar as Sanji. Season 2 will feature David Dastmalchian as Mr. 3, Camrus Johnson as Mr. 5, Jazzara Jaslyn as Miss Valentine, Daniel Lasker as Mr. 9, Werner Coetser as Dorry, Brendan Murray as Brogy, Clive Russell as Crocus, Callum Kerr as Smoker, Julia Rehwald as Tashigi, Rob Colletti as Wapol and Ty Keogh as Dalton.