Jamie Lee Curtis reflects on the heritage of Laurie Strode in ‘Halloween Ends’: “Her legacy will become mine”
Jamie Lee Curtis has been reflecting on the legacy of Laurie Strode, a character she’s played for the last 44 years on and off. She first stepped into the role in 1978 when she appeared in John Carpenter’s original Halloween.
Opening up about the character, Curtis told Variety: “The universal understanding of Laurie Strode is that as this original ‘final girl’, she never gave up, always pushing through no matter what. It is beyond comprehension that that is my legacy. I feel like I haven’t given up, that I have continued to try, but not at the level of Laurie Strode.”
The actor continued: “What I’ve gotten from her is way more than she’s gotten from me. Because when I’m gone, her legacy will become mine. Now, of course, I have my children, and that is my life, and that’s crucial. But in the films, she is my legacy, and I could not be prouder of any legacy — unless it’s like Mother Teresa or, you know, a great great Nelson Mandela or somebody like that — but in a film character, there’s not one you could name that I would rather be than Laurie Strode.”
Curtis was speaking while on the red carpet for the premiere of Halloween Ends, the latest instalment of the Halloween franchise. She was joined by co-stars Andi Matichak, Kyle Richards, Rohan Campbell, James Jude Courtney, Omar Dorsey, Joanne Baron and Michael Barbieri, as well as the film’s director David Gordon Green.
Discussing Curtis’ impact on Halloween, Matichak said: “It’s been incredibly surreal,” he commented. “Getting to be along this last ride for Jamie Lee and getting to watch her, and walk alongside her, as she takes her last walk in Laurie Strode’s shoes, and take the most elegant bow I think you could for a character…the way that she brings the depth to this, she does her such justice in this film.”
James Jude Courtney, who played the murderous Michael Myers in the reboot trilogy, called Curtis: “A poster child for an empowered woman. And an empowered human being empowers everyone around them, and she’s empowered an entire legacy, an entire genre of human beings.”
Check out the trailer for Halloween Ends below.
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