Often times when a celebrity goes on a talk show or does a round of press for a new film, they’ll recount what it’s like when a new generation of movie fans see their most famous role. For a tributary example, Gene Wilder once told Conan that every 4 or 5 years, the faces of a whole “crop” of brand new young kids would light up when they saw Willy Wonka walk by.
Most of the time, when actors talk about these kinds of experiences (beyond the basic “what line do people shout at you” question), they’re usually discussing their most popular work – which is, a great deal of the time, somewhat suited for children.
That, however, isn’t the case for Jamie Lee Curtis, whose call to fame has always been the Halloween franchise, which, initiated by John Carpenter in 1978, is still going hot – as two more films, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends are on their way.
All this being said, while promoting Rian Johnson’s latest thriller, Knives Out, Curtis revealed to CinemaBlend that she can’t stand when kids watch the hard R-rated slasher. I don’t think I can express her frustration well enough, so here’s exactly how she put it:
“I’m not demeaning children or saying they can’t handle (violence), but it’s the truth… When I go out to talk about Halloween, even when I was doing book tours for books for children, I would have people come… They will stand there with their five-year-old kid, and say to me, ‘My Bobby loves Halloween, Don’t you Bobby?’… and I look at them and I have the meanest, meanest JLC are-you-out-of-your-fucking-mind look of you are the worst human being on the planet that you would show your child Halloween. I have kind of a strong opinion, as you can tell, about when is correct and incorrect to expose a child to that stuff.”
Now, Curtis’ frustration isn’t exclusive to her; working at a multiplex theater, I can tell you that there have been plenty of cases where moviegoers demand a refund because a little kid was in a film they really shouldn’t have been (even though the MPAA allows entrance to any movie as long as the child is accompanied by a parent or guardian).
But when it comes to this topic, Curtis’s consistent around the board, saying that, despite what some of her co-workers have said, the PG-13 Knives Out should not be for little kids, either.
“Even this movie, Knives Out, it’s a great movie, it’s great for Thanksgiving family weekend. But we were doing a thing yesterday and we said something about “families” and I was the one who went, ‘Umm, it’s not a family movie.’ Then we had the discussion of how young. And Michael Shannon said, brilliant, ‘Double digits.’”
Well, there you have it folks. Keep in mind that if you take your young children to go see Knives Out or either of the upcoming Halloween movies, be sure to keep that to yourself – especially if you run into Jamie Lee Curtis.
