Jamie Lee Curtis talks trauma—and the fear that drives her own productivity

By? Yannise Jean

For four decades, Jamie Lee Curtis has had the pleasure of playing Laurie Strode in one of the longest actor and character pairings in history. Now, as the iconic Halloween series nears its conclusion with Halloween Ends, out on October 14, Curtis says she's proud of how the films address the reality of trauma and violence.?

?“I never thought I would make another Halloween movie after the [Halloween] H2O movie,” Curtis said at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York City. The Halloween franchise has spawned several reboots and retcon storylines, many of which didn’t include Curtis until the 2018 Halloween reboot, which showed Laurie Strode facing Michael Myers—and her trauma—head on. The film has been praised for its depiction of PTSD, trauma, and female rage, all the reasons why Curtis agreed to reprise her role nearly 40 years later.???

“When David Gordon Green sent me the script that Jason had asked him to write, I understood that it was gonna be about what happens to someone in reality,” she said. “These are horror movies, but they're real. And I was very impressed with how they were going to deal with, what is the reality of Laurie Strode’s life? What has it done to her family, the generational trauma, as well as the protectionism that she found herself in?”

The grounded reality of horror, and Halloween in particular, is an important aspect of the film. “Violence is brutal,” added Curtis. “It's absolutely gut-wrenchingly brutal. And you have to show that on the screen.” Even the fight scenes in the film aren’t choreographed to emphasize the violence and brutality of the situation.??

The current Halloween trilogy is produced by Blumhouse Productions, which has become notorious for producing blockbuster horror films on a minuscule budget, a departure from the current Hollywood norm of big-budget films. Making films on a small budget for big returns is a positive from a business perspective, but for Jason Blum, founder and CEO of Blumhouse, small budgets also grant filmmakers more creative freedom.?

“When you've given the director creative control, he or she is not going to bed every night in a panic, worried that they're going to be forced to do something they don't want to do,”? said Blum, who also appeared on the panel with Curtis at the Festival. “We do the opposite. We give creative control, but we are talking to the directors all day about everything. Here are our thoughts about the script, here's where you should shoot at. The conversation that we have with the directors is so much healthier.”

Creative freedom doesn’t just give directors free rein over their projects, but it also allows for a wider interpretation of what horror is, including films like Get Out and Midsommar from directors like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster who have imbued social commentary into horror with great success. Now studios are looking to other filmmakers to replicate that, says Blum.

?“I think there's more emphasis now on using horror to make a social message, which I think is great,” he said. “What doesn't work is if you take a social message first and build a horror movie around it. No one's gonna see it. In other words, the horror has to work before the social message. Otherwise, people feel like they're going to school.”

If there’s any advice that these two Hollywood veterans would give to budding filmmakers, it’s to marry your efficient work ethic with your creativity. And as Curtis emphasized, don’t let your opportunity pass you by: “I woke up at 60 and thought, ‘If not now, when, if not me, then who?’ The reason I came up with [the idea for my production company Comet Pictures] was I realized that I was gonna die. And all of this creativity that I have in my head going all day long was gonna die with me. And I thought, that's the tragedy of death: it is the creativity and love and beauty and art that comes from people like us, people who are thinkers and doers, it dies with you. So get it out before you're dead.”