The 59-year-old actress says the upcoming film is about saying 'enough.'
Jamie Lee Curtis says the new Halloween film couldn't have had better timing.
The 59-year-old actress returns to her first movie role as Laurie Strode in the upcoming Halloween, set for release 40 years after the John Carpenter original. It's been a long wait for Curtis, but she has a feeling it will resonate especially well with audiences this time around.
"It's a movie about trauma. It's a movie about what happens to somebody when you're 17 years old and you have this horrible trauma perpetrated on you, and you have no help," she told ET's Kevin Frazier in an interview with director David Gordon Green at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday. "This is a woman who has carried, for 40 years, her entire adult life, this trauma."
"And as we are seeing in the world today, all of these women, primarily women, who have been traumatized in all sorts of ways, physical violence, emotional violence, sexual violence and, in Laurie's case, actually knife-attack violence ... all of those women are having the moment where they will no longer allow that to be the narrative," Curtis continued, seemingly referencing the recent #MeToo and Time's Up movements that have brought change to Hollywood and beyond.
"No longer does that define them, that they are standing up and saying, 'Enough.' And this is a movie about 'enough' at a time when it happens to be a national and worldwide message," she added. "And so it couldn't be timed better, and it couldn't have been written better. Because, you see, what other life could Laurie Strode have? She was 17!"
Curtis couldn't be prouder to step into her old shoes as Laurie Strode, though fans may not initially recognize her when she hits the big screen. The actress forgoes her short pixie for a shoulder-length wig in the movie.
"That was actually David's call," she told ET of the director before noting the "ubiquity" of her now-signature hairstyle. "What was important was that we meet a woman who has not been focused on anything but Michael Myers for 40 years."
"Laurie Strode has believed from the beginning that Michael Myers is coming back, and it has been her dogmatic belief that has really ruined her life," Curtis revealed. "All of her adult life, she has been on the hunt, saying this man is coming back. And she's lost her marriages; she lost her child. She's still in Haddonfield, waiting for him."
As for how the film will address the Halloween franchise's nine other films, Green said this Halloween is a direct sequel to the 1978 film but might allude to the other movies.
"Some familiar characters will journey to Haddonfield and enjoy our return to some cinematic destinies," Green said. But he stayed mum about whether the movie will finally see the death of Michael Myers, saying only, "We'll see. We'll see."
Halloween hits theaters on Oct. 19.
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