In the episode of Nathan For You titled "Toy Company; Movie Theatre" Nathan mentions how it is a shame that the "guy who plays the Somalian pirate" in the film Capitaine Phillips (2013) hasn't had much of a career since that appearance. Barkhad Abdi, the said actor, then appears in The Curse nine years later. In fact, Abdi has worked steadily in television and movies since Captain Phillips, appearing in such films as Eye in the Sky, The Brothers Grimsby, and A Girl from Mogadishu, and such shows as Hawaii Five-O, Castle Rock, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, and Little America.
The series was inspired by an incident when Nathan Fielder was approached by a panhandler in Los Angeles. After Fielder turned down the woman's request for money, she told him "I curse you." Fielder was so shaken by her words that he went to an ATM and withdrew $20. After giving the woman the money, he asked if the curse had been broken. She said it had.
During a public awards consideration screening of the pilot in November 2023, a Q&A followed with Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, and Emma Stone. When discussing how the series strived to not make reality television a simple punchline, Emma Stone mentioned it was very much like actual reality TV production. When Benny Safdie asked how she would know, Stone mentioned she began her career on a reality TV series, In Search of the Partridge Family (2004), in 2004. Safdie said no one had ever mentioned this to him before.