Jamie Lee Curtis declares it’s her last ‘Halloween’ as Laurie Strode: ‘I’m going to miss her’
Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis is laying her crown down and stepping away from her star-making role as Laurie Strode in the “Halloween” franchise after “Halloween Ends” hits theaters this Friday.
In an essay written for People, Curtis reflected on what the role of the Haddonfield, Ill., babysitter-turned-slasher hero has meant to her.
“For 44 years, I have tried to figure out why and how the confluence of a young girl (Laurie Strode) and a monster (Michael Myers) came together in the 13 films titled ‘Halloween’. And this month, as I play Laurie for the last time, in ‘Halloween Ends,’ the final installment of the franchise, I am trying to figure out how to say goodbye to Laurie, who has taught me the meaning of the words ‘resilience,’ ‘loyalty,’ ‘perseverance’ and ‘COURAGE.’”
Curtis noted that her role in the 1978 horror flick opened more doors for her acting career.
“As I write this, I keep connecting the dots. If I hadn’t been in ‘Halloween’, I wouldn’t have met John Landis, the director who put me in ‘Trading Places’ and showed the world I can be funny. That got me ‘A Fish Called Wanda.’ That led to ‘True Lies,’ which led to ‘Freaky Friday.’ Dot connected, dot connected.”
The latest ‘Halloween’ trilogy is coming to an end, but not before one last face-off between Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode.
The “Knives Out” actor said the opportunity to play Strode came at a time when she had just been fired from her first acting gig and believed that her career was over. Curtis “discovered a natural instinct” while auditioning for the John Carpenter-directed classic, further saying that instinct has guided her career since.
Curtis has used the character to “represent survivors of all types of unimaginable horror and trauma, pain and suffering, who stand up to tyranny and oppression — real and imagined.”
“It’s now the end for Laurie and me,” Curtis wrote at the end of her emotional essay. “I’m going to miss her. ... I am scared right now, as I hang up my bell-bottoms and say goodbye to ‘Halloween.’ Life is scary. But Laurie taught me that life can also be beautiful, filled with love and art and life!”
The Activia yogurt spokesperson appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to discuss “Halloween Ends” and to formally sign a document stating that she really is done appearing in the slasher franchise.
In 1978, teenage babysitter Laurie Strode survived a showdown with masked serial killer Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” a critically acclaimed and commercially successful slasher flick that would spawn 11 films and jump-start the career of emerging young actress Jamie Lee Curtis.
“I declare this is my last Halloween movie,” read the statement Kimmel drafted for Curtis. “I, Jamie Lee Curtis, queen of scream, daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, mother of Lindsay Lohan, hereby swear under penalty of perjury that ‘Halloween Ends’ will be the last ‘Halloween’ movie I will ever appear in. For all time, across all sequels and multiverses, enforceable by the Police Department of Haddonfield, Ill.”
After joking that she would need to call her lawyers before signing anything, the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” actor signed the document.
“We’ll get this to the legal team at Myers and Myers and they’ll handle it from here,” Kimmel joked.
Earlier in the interview, Curtis talked about the emotions that came with forever leaving Haddonfield.
“I care. I care too much,” she said. “I’m a weepfest. I’ve been weeping for about a month now, trying to figure out how to say goodbye to all this.”
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