Jamie Lee Curtis traces her every success fromTrading PlacestoKnives Out straight back toHalloween.
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For a horror-movie fan, there are few thrills greater than interviewingJamie Lee Curtis.
Curtis is every bit the take-charge personality youd expect from watching her performances.
(Curtis grew up in a Hollywood family; her father was Tony Curtis.)
I said, Im sure youre familiar with this!
and she immediately replied, Never read it!
Watch our conversation below or read on for the full transcript.
You were in three different versions of theHalloweenstory over the course of 40 years.Forty-four, but whos counting?
Lets take it back to the originalHalloween.
Then you, the daughter of Janet Leigh, end up being the star of this movie.
How did it come about?Well, I wasnt originally going to be an actress.
I was going to be a police officer.
I thought I would be a cop or a social worker.
I thought Id be a really good cop.
Somehow, they wanted me with my D+, 840 combined SAT scores.
He said, Theyre looking for Nancy Drew at Universal.
Why dont you go up for it?
What was I, 18?
I had brown hair.
Maybe I was smart?
I went up for that part, and I didnt get it.
You should stick around.
So I took a month off from college to do an independent study.
Ill take acting classes, go to auditions, and Ill write a paper for drama.
They sent over a scene, and I went and auditioned to play Laurie Strode.
There are three parts for young girls: Theres a cheerleader duh!
Im a total cheerleader.
Theres a smart-aleck I mean, super-duh!
And then theres the quiet, repressed virgin intellectual.
But John and Deborah somehow saw something, and they cast me as Laurie Strode.
And my life has never, ever ceased to amaze me since that moment.
It usually comes down to two.
You go in a couple of times, they narrow it down.
So there were two of us, and I know who she was.
I dont think she went on to continue acting, but I know her name.
You got this because you have famous parents.
And thats a shitty thing to say to somebody when theyre young.
Then you as a young person have to venture to defend it.
Its not fair, and yet we do it all the time.
We all do it.
There was no advice-giving.
It was a little low-budget horror film.
I think she was just happy I had a job.
Its funny, you could look back on it and think that theres this great conversation.
It took a long time to catch on.
It got some good reviews, but again, there was no internet.
How did you sell a horror movie?
The trailer and then an ad in the paper, and that was about it.
I mean, it was a word-of-mouth response for sure.
People would say, Ooh, did you see that?
Did you find it difficult to get roles that showed different aspects of your talent?
I didnt know I had any talent.
I just showed up, did that movie; that was fun.
I didnt get any work.
I got no work.
Heres what I got:Charlies Angels.you might go on YouTube.
I am Cheryl Ladds best friend, and she wrestles an alligator.
I play a professional golfer on aCharlies Angelsepisode.
Then I did the ultimate guest-star part: I was onLove Boatwith my mother!
So I got those two jobs afterHalloweenand then I didnt get any other work.
They were the ones that held the secret to the success, not me.
And so they wrote the part inThe Fogfor me.
Also with my mother!
So you then go into the next big role for you,Trading Places, a classic comedy.
And its probably a surprise for people who only knew you from horror.So heres the story.
You may say, Well, how does Laurie Strode affectTrading Places?
Im gonna tell you.
Remember those crazy trailers that would say, Coming soon?
He was making a documentary about these horror-film trailers, and he needed somebody to be the on-camera personality.
Who do you think they called: the current scream queen, right?
I didnt know who John Landis was.
I dont watch these movies.
Id never seen one of them.
We worked for, like, three or four days on the back lot at Universal.
Then when John was castingTrading Places, he said to Paramount, I want her.
I went and auditioned, and they said no.
Remember, this is the female lead in a comedy with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.
I know they said no, and John Landis said yes.
And then that movie just was ahugehit, and that gave me some street cred.
Absolute perfection, this movie.
It runs at such a high level all the way through.
It just keeps building and building and building.
What was it like?I had a child at that point.
I had a 6-month-old baby.
It was very frustrating for me.How do you do this?
How do you work and take care of a child?I was feeling very conflicted.
We were shooting an hour away from where I was living.
That means two hours in a car and 12 hours at work every day.
It just felt shitty, so I was upset a lot.
The work was super-fun.
I obviously got to be the paramour for a bunch of different men, which was fun.
I bought them all toothbrushes on opening day.
You know, because its gross!
Youre just gonna be making out with all these strange people.
So I asked them to go brush their teeth.
But it was fun.
I just felt conflicted because I was away from my kid.
Thats how you integrate it.
Being an actor is not a hard job; its a time-consuming job.
Im a freelance actor.
Therefore, Im an unemployed actor most of the time.
So its not like I work 14-hour days every day for 340 days a year.
I work sporadically with intense time issues.
So for me, the issue was always time management.
Often I ask the question Why did you follow this movie with that?
I am an accidental participant in everything I do.
For the most part, Ive taken every job Ive ever received.
There is a movie calledVirus.
If you want to watch a really good bad movie, its calledVirus.
The man sitting here in the hat is looking at me like,Is she bullshitting me?
Is it really bad?Its really bad.
Hi, Jamie, its James Cameron.
Hi, James Cameron.
Okay, James Cameron!
Hang up, the guy shows up, I read the script.
He and I meet the next morning.
Im like, Okay!
He says, Great.
The phone rang, and it was James Cameron saying, Ive written a movie for you.
Thats gotta be pretty great.It was awesome!
How far into the schedule isthis scene in the hotel room?
He said, Its the second week.
I said, Fuck!
and then I stopped eating because that was like three weeks away.
So they screen-tested a bunch of actresses.
It ultimately came back to me.
To Arnolds credit, we are now friends.
I just think he knew me as Tonys little girl.
If you remember, Arnold Schwarzenegger directed a movie calledChristmas in Connecticut, and who did it star?
And Im not a traditional beauty.
Im not a traditional leading woman.
I think he thought maybe there was a better person out there.
I give him a total pass for that.
I agree with him.
I probably would have done the same thing.
But I ended up doing the part.
And heres what happened.
Like in those spy movies.
Your classic interrogation scene.Classic interrogation setup that one light above your head.
But overhead light is shitty!
So I called the DP, and I said, Hi, its Jamie Lee Curtis.
Listen, apparently, Im gonna play the part of Helen.
Listen, theres a seven-, eight-page scene in the middle of this movie.
Its written that its a bare bulb above my head.
Because I said, You have to figure out a way to get light on my face.
The cinematographer had the production team build a light around the glass so I could be lit.
Then Im lit really well.
I was a replacement part, but great.
Tell me about that.Ive been a replacement part a very successful replacement part a couple of times.
I was a replacement part onFreaky Friday.
That was like the week before shooting began and I stepped into that part.
Which might be my favorite of all your performances.Oh, its fantastic.
But I believe I was also a replacement part inKnives Out, which is great!
How much time did you have to prepare forFreaky Friday?A week.
I had a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old at the same time.
The only line Ive ever improvised.
So at lunch, the guitar tech would come and we would work.
I will tell you this: Im married to a guitarist.
Im married toNigel Fucking Tufnel.
My husbands lovely and supportive-ish.
I mean he is, but you know what I mean.
We have a different way we go about things.
I remember I had learned the guitar solo, and I was feeling like Fuck yeah!
And so I said to my husband, Can you just sit here?
Can I just do this guitar solo?
Because I need to be able to do it with somebody watching me, not just by myself.
He was like, Okay.
I just closed my eyes andwent for it.
I opened my eyes, and this was my husband [initiates15-second blank stare].
I want to talk aboutEverything Everywhere All at Once.So great!
You were a huge, huge booster of that film.
I am a weapon of mass promotion.
Youre laughing, but I invented Instagram.
The iPhone was released several years before Instagram, and you could take good pictures with it.
Im a photographer, and I started being able to take really beautiful pictures.
Im gonna start a Blogspot called wait for it iPhoneys: iPhone Photographers Sharing Their Vision at iphoneys.blogspot.com.
you’re able to go to the Blogspot today.
Theyre all still there.
Anyway, you were talking about loving a movie.
That, to me, meant my job was complete.
I loved that movie so much, and I couldnt believe it existed.
I couldnt either.And I couldnt believe how much people loved it.
It was so thrilling.
It was so thrilling.
And a lot of it you were in.
I know Deirdre Beaubeirdra.
I know women like Deirdre Beaubeirdra.
Tell me about Michelle Yeoh.Michelle Yeoh is just an extraordinary human being.
We had never met.
We met on day one of rehearsing, and the two of us just fell in love.
We were all up in each others grille.
By the way, that movie was made in 38 days in an abandoned office building in Simi Valley.
That building was the Countrywide Savings and Loan campus.
They were at the beginning of the subprime meltdown.
That building got evacuated in one day.
That entire campus that you see in that movie, which was the IRS office, was abandoned.
They just pulled the computers out and walked out.
And we shot the entire movie in that building.
They built the interior of Dierdre and Evelyns apartment in the atrium of that building.
Thats what creative people can do with 38 days and $12 million in Simi Valley, California.
I mean, theres a moment where you dont want a movie camera in your face anymore.
What happened is I went to Jason and started a company.
I wrote a screenplay, and I may direct it for Jasons company.
Then through Jasons company, weve started to buy material.
We bought all of the rights toPatricia Cornwells Scarpettanovels, which were turning into a television series.
I have four or five other TV shows that Im trying to produce and get going.
Its all a hustle.
Nothings easy, nothing happens quickly.
Oh my fucking God, nothing happens quickly.
The wheels of this business are soincrediblyslow because nobody can make decisions, and it just feels endless.
But I persevere, Im patient, and Im trying to figure out how to manifest.
Whats gonna flip my switch every day?
Maybe I cant get any of it done.
And then the dream beyond that is to be in one classic film.
Then the dream beyond that is to be the image that is on the poster of that classic film.
I achieved that, and everything after that has been great.Wow, I wish shed toldmethat!
That would have been really fucking helpful!
But youve done that, time and time again.I have, thank you.
Its an extraordinary achievement.And Ive had fun!
I want to talk about your tattoo.
I want to know why you have a hand tattoo.
What does it say?
It says, Remember, and then this hand says, who you are.Oh shut the fuck up!
I love that so much!
I have tears in my eyes.
Cant we just cry for a minute together?
Remember who you are?
I mean, Remember who you are.
When you leave here, remember who you are.
And who you are is incredible.
Remember who you are and that you’re able to manifest whatever the fuck you want.
you’re able to do it because look at me!
Im telling you, 840 combined on my SATs.
Cant do an accent to save my life.
