Photo: Mary Evans/COMPASS INTERNATIONAL PICTURES/FALCON INTERNATIONAL PRODUC/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection
With the final film in an iconic franchise,Halloween Ends, now in theaters and streaming on Peacock,Jamie Lee Curtis— the O.G. Scream Queen to fans — is looking back on playing Laurie Strode for the last time. Here, in an essay written exclusively forPEOPLE, she explains how four decades of horror movies have shaped her personal and professional life.
You call me the Scream Queen. I don’t call myself that, but I get it. Not the queen part. The scream part. But what you may not know about me is that I scare easily — and often.
A behind the scenes selfie of Jamie Lee Curtis filming ‘Halloween Ends’.
I also need to say thank you. Everything good in my life can be traced back to Laurie. I was with the writer of the originalHalloweenwhen I saw my husband of 37 years for the first time. Debra Hill and I were on my couch in West Hollywood in 1984. I opened up an issue ofRolling Stone, saw Christopher Guest in aSpinal Tapstory and said, “I’m gonna marry that guy.” (I did, six months later.)
As I write this, I keep connecting the dots. If I hadn’t been inHalloween, I wouldn’t have met John Landis, the director who put me inTrading Placesand showed the world I can be funny. That got meA Fish Called Wanda. That led toTrue Lies, which led toFreaky Friday. Dot connected, dot connected.
Jamie Lee Curtis and husband Christopher Guest.Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic
Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘Halloween Ends’.
I was 19 at the time. I had been fired from the ABC showOperation Petticoat, my first real acting gig. I thought my embryonic career was over. But I was told about an audition for a low-budget horror film. I drove to an office in Hollywood. I was to do the scene where Laurie is on the phone with her friend and then looks out and sees Michael staring at her from her backyard, and she recoils. She looks back — he’s gone. As the audition began, I remember being nervous. But for me, acting releases fear. I gave mine to Laurie.
I got the part. Since that day, I’ve come to understand that havingJanet Leigh as my mother— the woman most famous for being killed in the shower in the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiecePsycho— added a certain, well,somethingwhenHalloweenwas released. I fully accept that. I’m very proud to be the daughter of my parents. (My father was an actor too:Tony Curtis.)
David Gordon Green and Andi Matichak.
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Halloweenwould be my first opportunity to really create a character. Laurie’s name was on every page. I remember charting her stress level, scribbling 1 to 10. Since you shoot most movies out of order, I wanted to show her terror level accurately onscreen. I also wanted to make sure she looked like an everygirl. I shopped at Kmart for her “back-to-school clothes”: bell-bottom jeans, over-the-knee white stockings and penny loafers.
Andi Matichak and Rohan Campbell.
No one knew thatHalloweenwould become the most successful independent film at that time. I was paid $8,000 for the movie — $2,000 a week for four weeks. It’s important that you know that, because we are hearing outrageous sums of money being paid to actors and sports figures and influencers. But that wasn’t the case on our set in 1978, and it often isn’t the case today. As actors, we work for the creative experience, the opportunity to grow and learn, to try new things. Sometimes, rarely, something is wildly successful, and we reap those rewards.
Two decades after the firstHalloween, I didH20. We posited the question: What happens to someone when they have been traumatized and on the run their entire life? Well, Laurie was in hiding; she had to change her identity. She had fallen into alcoholism. It ends with Laurie facing Michael Myers and acknowledging that the only way to have any chance at life is to face your demons one on one.
David Gordon Green.
I had my own. I had been hiding an opiate addiction and ongoing alcoholism and, although hidden to anyone but myself, it was a pervasive demon that I needed to face. I did that in 1999 when I realized I was looking at my problem in the mirror. Ihave been sober since then. My domestic and personal life got better.
Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween Ends.
I still can’t tell you why people like to be scared. I certainly don’t. I can’t tell you why people flock to horror films. (Is it feeling the collective fear and experiencing release through screaming?) I can’t tell you why Laurie Strode became O.G. Final Girl. I assume it has something to do with her intelligence and strength of character, quick mind and profound bravery.
I have tried over the years to inculcate those aspects of Laurie’s character into my own, to carry that mantle and represent survivors of all types of unimaginable horror and trauma, pain and suffering, who stand up to tyranny and oppression — real and imagined. (Okay, cue the “JLC trauma” memes. Yes, I’ve seen, laughed and shared.)
source: people.com
