From Blumhouse Productions, executive producer/creative consultant John Carpenter and director David Gordon Green (who also wrote the film with Danny McBride), Halloween is a terrifying look at the after-effects of the trauma that Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) experienced when Michael Myers put on the mask and went on a killing spree in Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night, four decades ago. But now, there’s also Karen (Judy Greer), the daughter who was taken away from her and who struggles with her mother’s non-stop paranoia, and the teenaged Allyson (Andi Matichak), who’s stuck in the middle of the rift between her mother and her grandmother, to keep safe, by any means necessary.  

At the film’s Los Angeles press day, held on the appropriately Halloween-decorated back lot of Universal Studios, actress Jamie Lee Curtis spoke at a roundtable interview about returning to Laurie Strode, why it’s such an important character to her, exploring the impact of trauma on the female psyche, having a bit of a role reversal between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, Easter eggs, and her friendship with original Halloween writer/producer Debra Hill and the affect that she had on her, personally and professionally.  

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Image via Universal Pictures

Question:  When you heard about the possibility that Laurie Strode was coming back, what was your first reaction to that? 

JAMIE LEE CURTIS:  That was a call from Jake Gyllenhaal, who had worked with David and said, “My friend David, who I love and had a really good experience with, wants to talk to you about a thing. You’ve gotta call David.” So, we spoke, and he sent me the script. I read it, and I called him that day. The two things that popped in to my mind, right when I read it, and I read it on vacation, was that there was a scene where Allyson went on a run in the neighborhood and then she went into her house to get ready for school, and she opened the closet door. It’s not in the movie, but that was on page 2, and I thought, “Oh, that’s beautiful.” Forty years ago, I ended in that closet, and now, here was my granddaughter, opening the closet and getting ready for school, to go on with her day. I thought that was beautiful. I thought the journalists were great, and that they were British was just perfect. Right away I was like, “Okay, this is fantastic.” I finished it and thought it was great. 

This film really explores trauma on the female psyche and how that impacts your character and her daughter. 

CURTIS:  Trauma is generational. I’m sure many of us have friends whose grandparents or parents were Holocaust survivors, and you see how that trauma goes through generations. Obviously, that’s a very heavy thing to reference, and this is fiction, but trauma is generational and it is passed on, unless it’s helped. Of course, now there are a lot of people that spend their lives helping people through traumas. There are a lot of trauma centers and a lot of recovery centers for that. There was nothing in 1978. I believe Laurie Strode went to school on November 1st. I think she went to school with a bandage on her arm, and maybe some stitches from the emergency room. I think her parents sent her back to school. And of course, two days before, she was an intellectual honor student, heading off to be the valedictorian of her class. She was gonna get out of Haddonfield and go off and expand her mind. Two days later, she was a freak. Two days later, she walked down the hall and everybody was like, “Oh, my god, there’s Laurie Strode. Holy shit! Hi, Laurie!” That’s the trauma that violence does to people. It took 40 years for her to work through it. Obviously, she had no help, nothing.

There’s a new trend with you in this new Halloween, a new Terminator with Linda Hamilton, and Carrie Fisher back in Star Wars. How does it feel to be part of that, where these strong female characters from back in the day are coming back, all of these years later? 

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Image via Universal

CURTIS:  It’s funny, obviously I’m way happy that women over 50 can get a job, and have a job that has depth. The thing that I took away from the movie was depth, emotion and emotional complexity. When it comes to trauma, how does it manifest? How does it manifest in a family? How does it isolate you? How does it distance you from people? I thought all of that was great. So, to me, it’s not just a grandma looking cute. And I’m not denigrating the other movies. I haven’t seen them, so I don’t know what those women got to do. But Laurie Strode was the best part I had ever played because it was a full character, when I was 19 years old and the only thing a director or a costume designer would say to me was, “What size jeans do you wear?” I was a young, nubile girl, so it was just like, “Okay, put her in a cute pair of jeans,” and here was a part that actually had a character. And now, here I am again, 40 fucking years later. It’s whack that I get a role that has this complexity and depth, when I don’t get that. I’m lucky to get a job anywhere, at my age, and here is a job that has real depth. Therefore, from the moment the movie began to a month after I finished, coming home with a cracked rib and beaten and bloodied, I couldn’t stop crying for a month, and I couldn’t stop crying, from the moment I walked on the set. I was isolated, I was away from my family, and all of it came back. It was very powerful. 

Can you speak to the ownership of the character? Was there anything in the script that you didn’t necessarily feel was right for Laurie? 

CURTIS:  Yes. The first script had her messy, with dishes in the sink and clothes strewn around. I said, “A woman who sleeps with a knife and a gun wouldn’t have an El Pollo Loco box on the bed to get in the way. I understand it’s not gonna be a streamlined bunker, and I don’t know about you guys, but I have things next to my bed. I have an extra pair of glasses. I could have my eyes closed, but at any point, still be able to grab my glasses because I know where they are. That’s Laurie Strode. She wears glasses, so they’re right there and there’s a second pair. And the gun is right there. Her house would not be messy. There would not be a mess.” That’s an example where they thought they were gonna show her mental state through that, and I said, “That’s a cheap way to do it.” 

What I love about the Laurie Strode we meet now is that the roles are completely reversed, where she’s the predator and Michael Myers is the prey. 

CURTIS:  The first day in Laurie’s house, when I first walked on my set, I walked in about an hour before everybody else because I just wanted to live in the house for a minute. There’s a bookcase, and there was a book on the shelf, called Let Us Prey, P-R-E-Y. And I took a picture of it and sent it to Jason Blum and Bill Block, and I said, “There’s your tagline for the movie.” In a way, she also has become Loomis, the way he was in the movie, because she is now saying what Loomis said the whole movie, which is, “You have to kill him. He must be killed.” All of his rhetoric about Michael Myers is Laurie’s rhetoric now. So, yes, he becomes the prey. But Let Us Prey? Come on! 

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Image via Universal Pictures / Blumhouse

So, David Gordon Green let it slip that you did the baby voice in the film. 

CURTIS:  That’s called an Easter egg. 

How long did you actually have to do that for? 

CURTIS:  It was like 30 seconds, on the day, when we shot it. I’m obviously a virtuoso. 

How much of this character was a collaboration between you, John Carpenter and Debra Hill, when it came to creating her? 

CURTIS:  There wasn’t any collaboration with them because they had done the work. They had written Laurie Strode. The collaboration was that I got to go out with the costume woman. We had $200, so we went to JC Penney and bought Laurie back to school clothes, like she would have with her mom. It was like, “Okay, honey, we’re gonna get you back to school clothes ‘cause you’ve grown. So, get the skirt that matches the sweater, and those white stockings. And then, get a pair of jeans, but not too tight.” That’s what Laurie’s back to school clothes were. That’s when I knew it was a character. You have to remember, I’m a bit of a smart ass. I’m a ham. I’m embarrassing to my family, all the time. I am just an embarrassment because I’m this person, all the time, and I’ve been this person since I was 11. There was a reason Ray Stark asked my mother if I could be in The Exorcist. I was this person, when he knew me at 11. If you see a picture of me at 11, I look exactly like this. I am this person.  

So, the beauty of it for me was that John cast me as Laurie Strode, who is the most rounded character that I will maybe ever get to play. In fact, for sure, will ever get to play. True Lies was great. It was a great part that was beautifully written. Freaky Friday was a great part, that was beautifully written and fun. But Laurie Strode is a full character, and it was very different for me. I, quite frankly, should have been cast in the smart ass role, or the P.J. Soles part. I am that, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Michael Myers has to go,” girl. I was a cheerleader in high school. The fact that he cast me as the intellectual, thinking, quiet girl, at a time when people asked me what size jeans I wore, made me understand that I was an actress. And really, I became an actress because of it. I don’t think I was an actress before. I think I was just a performer. I became an actress on Halloween. I’ll literally start to sob at the table, and that will be embarrassing, but I really do believe that (director) David [Gordon Green] gave me a chance to be an actress again. I sold yogurt that makes you shit for seven years, and it’s really beautiful to be able to have done something that has some depth. It’s been amazing. 

Can you talk about Debra Hill and the memories you have of her? 

CURTIS:  The movie is dedicated to (original Halloween producer) Moustapha Akkad. He died in a suicide bombing with his daughter, Rima, and Malek, his son, is carrying on the family tradition, so the movie was dedicated to him. At one point, there was a conversation about whether we could dedicate the movie to Debra, but they decided to dedicate it to Moustapha. Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween without Debra Hill. The voice of those girls is all Debra Hill. John [Carpenter] is a talented man, but he’s a guy from Kentucky. He doesn’t speak teenage girl like Debra Hill. I think those three women are Debra Hill. That intellectual side, the snarky smart aleck side, and the frisky side. I think she was all three of those young women, and she’s therefore responsible for the Laurie we meet today. I loved her.  

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Image via Universal Pictures / Blumhouse

By the way, Debra Hill became one of my best girlfriends after the movie. She was 30, and I was 19. John and she were together, as a couple, but then they split up. Not only am I directly connected to her through Laurie Strode, bit I wouldn’t be married to my husband, if not for Debra Hill. I was sitting on my couch, in my apartment in West Hollywood, when I turned the page of Rolling Stone magazine, and I was sitting there on a couch with her, and there was a picture of Chris [Guest], Michael [McKean] and Harry [Shearer] from Spinal Tap. There was a picture of them as regular guys, and then the next page was them as the characters. I turned the page and I went, “Oh, I’m gonna marry that guy.” Swear on my life! And she said, “Oh, he’s an actor. I tried to put him in a movie. His name is Chris Guest.” And I said, “Oh, I’m gonna marry him.” She said, “He’s with your agency.” And I was like, “Well, I’m gonna marry him.”

The next day, I called his agent at my agency. The guy picked up the phone and I said, “Hi, David, it’s Jamie Curtis.” He said, “Yeah, I know all about it. Chris Guest.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Debra Hill called me.” So, left my number with David, but Chris didn’t call me. I ran into him at a restaurant, and we acknowledged that I had called him. He called me the next day, and we married four months later. That was Debra Hill. There was no IMDB then. I wouldn’t have known how to find him. I would have just said, “Oh, super cute guy. I’m gonna marry him.” I would have never recognized him in the restaurant. I would have never have gestured to him like that, to remind him that I had called. I would never have known him. That was Debra Hill. Crazy, right? I wouldn’t be married today. And then, she produced Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman, that Chris directed.

Halloween is now playing in theaters.

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