Jamie Lee Curtis opens up about addiction: “Sinister and deadly”
Ahead of the premiere of her new movie with Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis has discussed her ten-year battle with addiction and recovery journey.
The Freaky Friday actor will soon return to the big screen in the sequel to the 2003 classic, titled Freakier Friday. In the first movie, Curtis and Lohan star as a mother and daughter who switch bodies. The second film expands on this premise with a four-way body swap.
Speaking to The Guardian in promotion for this movie, Curtis opened up about what it was like to go to recovery meetings after being addicted to Vicodin. At the time of making the first movie, Curtis has said that she was around nine months sober. She has been sober ever since.
At the height of her addiction, she was fully functioning. She termed herself a “controlled addict,” and reminisced that rock bottom for her was not exactly life-altering. She said, “When I acknowledged my lack of control, I was in a very controlled state. I lost none of the external aspects of my life. The only thing I had lost was my own sense of myself and self-esteem.”
She continued, “There’s no one way to be an addict or an alcoholic. People hide things – I was lucky, and I am ambitious, and so I never let that self-medication get in the way of my ambition or work or creativity. It never bled through. No one would ever have said that had been an issue for me.”
However, the cost of her addiction was high in other ways. She reflected: “The external costs are awful for people, but the internal costs are more sinister and deadly, because to understand that you are powerless over something other than your own mind and creativity is something. But that was a long time ago. I’m an old lady now.”
Freakier Friday will be released on August 8th, 2025.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.