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Jamie Lee Curtis walked into New York Comic Con on Saturday night like a silver-haired, sassy, and sometimes emotional tornado.
During the event, Curtis spoke to talk show host and Scream actor Drew Barrymore about the Halloween franchise, from the original 1978 John Carpenter film to the upcoming Halloween End (premiering Oct. 14).
Directed by David Gordon Green, Curtis will play the character of Laurie Strode for the last time in Halloween Ends.
“You know endings are a b**ch,” Curtis stated at the beginning of the panel,” but so is Laurie Strode.”
When asked by Barrymore where her iconic role in Carpenter’s 1978 film came from, Curtis said she wasn’t Laurie when she was younger, so it became an opportunity for her to become an actress.
“So, when I was 19, I was not like Laurie Strode. Laurie Strode was an acting part. You know, you would have hired me to play Linda (the character played by P.J. Soles in the movie). I [was] just a little snarky, and I was a little promiscuous, but I was not Laurie Strode,” she said.
“What was amazing to me was [it was] an acting part. She didn’t look like me, she didn’t dress like me, she didn’t think like me. I barely got out of high school. She was like the valedictorian of her class. There was a real opportunity for me to be an actor. I hadn’t had that opportunity before. For me, that was incredible.”
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Halloween Ends: Beginning to Curtis’ Success
Additionally, Curtis shared with Barrymore and the audience that the actress has morphed into her signature character over time.
“At this point, Jamie and Laurie have become woven together. There is no separation,” she said with voice cracking. “I wouldn’t have anything in my life without Laurie Strode. Nothing. I wouldn’t have a career. I would not have a family…
“Everything good in my life from that s—ty little office on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, that was about the size of where these two chairs are, when John Carpenter and Debra Hill [producer and co-writer of the first film] cast me in the part of Laurie Strode.”
She added that the character is a permanent mark in her life.
“I didn’t know it then, I know it now,” she said. “You know, one of these days, hopefully not tomorrow, but, you know, I’m 64, do the math, it’s not in my favor. Sooner or later, it’s going to say three words: ‘Halloween actress dies.’ My point is, it is the permanent ink of my life.”
And regarding Halloween Ends, Curtis referred to the movie as concerning “how we treat each other. And it’s a movie about how the entire town of Haddonfield has turned against Laurie Strode, the innocent victim whose life was brutalized by Michael Myers, and it just shows… what violence does to people… These movies are about way more than just Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, they’re about who we are.”
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