Over 40 years after she originated the role in the 1978 film 'Halloween,' the franchise is coming to a close.
Over 40 years after Jamie Lee Curtis originated the role of Laurie Strode in the 1978 film Halloween, the franchise is coming to a close with Halloween Ends. The film, which is the final installment in director David Gordon Green’s trilogy, also marks Lee’s last turn as the former babysitter stalked by the masked killer Michael Myers.
Ahead of the film’s debut in theater and on Peacock on Oct. 14, Curtis reveals to ET that saying goodbye has been “filled with emotions” for multiple reasons. “It’s multifaceted in emotions because on one hand, I’m saying bye to just literally the physical crew I work with, my director I’ve directed movies with and this community of artists that I work with everyday,” she says.
“Then, I’m ultimately saying goodbye, if you’re a fan, to you. I’m saying goodbye and I’m saying thank you all at the same time,” Curtis continues.
Not only that, but “everything good in my life is from Laurie Strode,” the 63-year-old actress says. With Halloween marking her on-screen acting debut at 20 years old, Curtis went on to become the horror genre’s ultimate “scream queen” (or “final girl”) before launching an award-winning career on film and TV that spanned nearly five decades.
Despite playing Laurie in multiple films since then, Gordon rebooted the franchise in 2018, with a new film that was a direct sequel to the original. The 2018 Halloween then was followed by two more films, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, with the latter bringing this version of the story to a close.
“There’s nothing in my life that doesn’t trace back to Laurie Strode. And so, to say goodbye to her permanently is incredibly emotional, filled with gratitude, filled with wonder and amazement,” Curtis continues, explaining what it means to be “talking about her and what she’s meant to people.”
Of course, there were other installments in the franchise, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later and Halloween: Resurrection, that brought Curtis back to the role long after she thought she was done playing the character. And even now, she admits it’ll be hard to separate herself from Laurie.
“It’s like commercial glue where they can’t pull us apart,” she says, acknowledging “all the love and energy” that she gets from fans, knowing it’s “about Laurie [but] also about me. And it’s just this beautiful relationship.”
That said, “I find it hard to imagine that another creative entity is going to come up with a way to talk about Laurie and Michael and that relationship or that conflict,” Curtis continues, noting that the latest trilogy came “out of the blue” in 2017.
But, then again, Green had “a really interesting idea, which was what happens to people when they’ve been traumatized and haven’t had any mental health support?” That, of course, resulted in Halloween (2018), which was a box office smash. And “this last movie honors the fact that her daughter [Karen Nelson played by Judy Greer] has died, and we see what a little mental health support can actually give a person,” Curtis explains.
And with Halloween Ends, “I think we’ve said it all,” she concludes.
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