You may not know it, but there’s a lot more to the forty-year career of Jamie Lee Curtis than her role in the Halloween series. Still, given the impact that the original 1978 horror pic had on the genre and the continuing popularity of the franchise, it’s likely that the actress’ big screen debut as scream queen Laurie Strode will always be the most celebrated and fondly remembered moment in her accomplished career.
We don’t imagine Curtis is too bugged by this legacy, either, given that she’s about to reprise the role of Strode for the fifth time in the upcoming Halloween from director David Gordon Green. True, Laurie was murdered at the start of 2002’s Resurrection, but this new sequel looks to be ignoring everything that’s happened in the series since the first installment, meaning that the franchise’s favorite heroine is alive and back to face down the knife-wielding Myers one last time.
But if you ask Curtis, she doesn’t think she should’ve even been cast as Laurie in the first place. Rather, she thinks she would’ve been a better fit for Laurie’s friend, Annie Brackett – a role that eventually went to Nancy Kyes.
Speaking to TooFab ahead of Halloween‘s premiere next month, the actress said the following:
“I, quite frankly, should have been cast in the smart ass [role]. The fact that [director John Carpenter] cast me as the intellectual, thinking, quiet girl, at a time when people asked me what size jeans I wore, made me understand that I was an actress and really what it is, is I became an actress. I don’t think I was an actress before. I think I was just a performer and I became an actress on Halloween.”
Whether she feels like she should’ve been cast as Laurie or not, things worked out well in the end, as like we said above, Halloween put Jamie Lee Curtis on the path to stardom and is without a doubt her most iconic role. Not to mention it’ll also be her legacy, something the actress is well aware of.
As for the upcoming sequel, well, critics seem to love it so far and from the sounds of it, 2018’s Halloween is a respectful love letter to one of the greats of horror cinema. Combine that with the fact that Curtis is back as Laurie Strode, and you can bet that I won’t miss this one for the world.
